GIFT  OF 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 


BY  THE  SAME  A  UTHOR 


HUMAN  CONFESSIONS 
GOD  AND  DEMOCRACY 
BUSINESS  AND  KINGDOM  COME 


LAME   AND    LOVELY 

ESSAYS  ON  RELIGION  FOR 
MODERN  MINDS 


BY 
FRANK   CRANE 

Author  of 
"Human  Confessions"   etc. 


CHICAGO 

FORBES  &  COMPANY 
1912 


COPYRIGHT,    1912   BY 
FORBES  AND  COMPANY 


C7 


THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

Religion  and  the  Modern  Mind 

THE  human  race  is  incurably  religious. 
We  are  more  religious  to-day  than  were 
the    Puritans,    the    Crusaders,    or   the   mediaeval 
ascetic  orders. 

To  see  this  we  must  understand  what  religion  is. 

Religion  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  life,  in  its 
purest,  most  elemental  form. 

Jesus,  the  greatest  of  religious  teachers,  never 
used  the  word  religion :  he  spoke  always  of  life. 

It  was  the  fortune,  or  misfortune,  of  the  cult  of 
Jesus  to  be  taken  up  by  the  Latin  world. 

The  genius  of  the  Roman  was  organization. 

So  the  Roman  world  organized  the  Company  of 
Jesus  into  the  Church,  patterned  on  Caesar's  em- 
pire ;  and  the  teaching  of  Jesus  it  organized  into  a 
body  of  theology. 

It  is  interesting  to  speculate  what  the  Christ 
Company  on  earth  might  have  been,  if  it  had  re- 

7 


THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

mained  fluid,  free,  a  spiritual  leaven  of  open-eyed 
souls. 

What  if  they  had  remained  simply  the  spirit- 
ually elect,  putting  away  the  lust  of  conquest, 
either  temporal  or  otherwise,  refusing  all  endow- 
ments of  money,  erecting  no  temples,  refusing  all 
aid  from  the  powers  of  this  world,  sticking  stub- 
bornly to  the  programme  of  Jesus  and  Paul  ? 

It  is  useless  to  inquire.  Such  was  not  the 
plan  of  destiny,  which  has  its  own  strange,  slow 
ways. 

Perhaps  organization,  institutionalism,  and  dog- 
ma, with  their  blinding  quick  success,  are  the 
kind  of  things  the  world  can  never  understand  ex- 
cept by  living  through  them.  Humanity  had  to 
have  them,  as  a  boy  has  to  have  the  measles. 

The  opening  of  the  Twentieth  Century  is 
marked  by  a  change  in  the  expression  of  ethical 
feeling. 

The  dynamic  of  Jesus  is  manifesting  itself  in 
terms  of  democracy,  the  removal  of  ancient  priv- 
ileges, the  general  rise  in  importance  of  the  com- 
mon people. 

Socialism  spreads  in  Germany,  republicanism 
bursts  out  in  Portugal,  the  House  of  Lords  is 
clipped  of  its  power  in  England,  even  China  is  in 

8 


THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

a  ferment  of  democracy.  Government  every- 
where is  feeling  the  sun-rays  of  Jesus1  influence. 

In  business  more  and  more  the  principles  of 
justice,  and  the  claims  of  "  one  of  the  least  of 
these,"  characterize  modern  life. 

In  literature  the  tendency  is  to  study  the  com- 
mon lot,  to  reveal  its  divinity  and  dignity,  as  well 
as  to  put  the  best  literature  within  the  reach  of  the 
multitude. 

In  art  humanity  is  recognized  in  Millet  and 
Israels,  while  only  saints  and  kings  were  thought 
worth  while  by  Rafael  and  Michelangelo. 

The  great  discovery  of  modern  times  is  The 
People. 

All  this  is  precisely  the  spirit  of  Jesus.  The 
Puritan,  monkish  endeavor  to  attain  individual 
holiness,  and  to  develop  the  sensation  of  religious 
ecstasy,  apart  from  the  world,  was  a  half-Jewish, 
half-heathen  idea,  into  which  the  genial,  out-of- 
doors  and  social  Jesus  never  fit. 

With  him  religious  emotion  meant  nothing  aside 
from  its  altruistic  vent. 

Thinkers  to-day,  who  have  any  sort  of  vision, 
are  ceasing  to  confound  Christianity  with  the 
Church.  That  was  the  mistake  of  most  of  the  so- 
called  "  infidels  "  from  Voltaire  to  Ingersoll. 


THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

Grant  that  Christianity  and  any  one  or  more 
organizations  or  theological  schemes  are  identical, 
and  at  once  Christianity  is  indefensible. 

It  is  only  when  we  conceive  Christianity  to  be 
a  larger  thing,  a  vast  spiritual  leavening,  a  kinetic 
spirit,  of  which  the  various  churches  are  but  one 
expression,  but  which  in  its  entirety  means  apply- 
ing the  wisdom  and  feeling  of  Jesus  to  govern- 
ment, business,  work,  amusement,  and  all  life,  that 
we  grasp  the  significance  of  Christ. 

The  Church,  as  John  the  Baptist,  must  say, 
facing  him,  "  He  must  increase,  and  I  must  de- 


crease." 


The  past  deserves  our  reverence.  It  had  its 
noble  souls,  its  heroic  ideas. 

The  past  is  the  mother  of  the  present.  Out  of 
the  womb  of  its  purpose  the  present  has  come  with 
great  travail.  And  one  should  respect  one's 
mother. 

But  the  past  also  must  be  criticised  and  judged, 
or  we  make  no  advance.  We  are  to  perceive  and 
shun  its  mistakes,  as  every  good  son  pleases  his 
mother  best  in  profiting  by  her  experience. 

To  imitate  the  past  in  evil  as  well  as  good,  for 
fear  of  being  irreverent,  is  to  live  in  slavery. 

10 


THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

Blind  ancestor-worship  means  Chinese  stagna- 
tion. 

With  all  respect,  therefore,  while  we  appreciate 
that  vision  of  God  which  our  forefathers  had,  rep- 
resented in  such  spiritual  splendor  as  that  of 
Francis  of  Assisi,  yet  for  our  own  and  for  our  chil- 
dren's sakes  we  must  condemn  their  religion  as 
nine  parts  heathenism  and  one  part  Christly. 

Through  the  murky  air  of  monarchical  ideas  the 
pure  ray  of  Jesus1  democracy  hardly  pierced. 

The  spiritual  energy  of  this  day  takes  a  differ- 
ent direction  from  that  which  it  took  in  the  days 
before  the  dawn  of  democracy.  We  build  no 
more  cathedrals  and  monasteries;  we  build  hos- 
pitals and  public  schools. 

We  go  no  more  on  Crusades  to  rescue  the  tomb 
of  the  Saviour  from  the  unbelievers;  we  march 
against  life  insurance  companies  and  railway  com- 
bines for  the  sake  of  "  the  little  ones  "  with  whom 
the  Saviour  identified  himself. 

It  is  a  fad  to  admire  mediaeval  faith,  as  we  ad- 
mire mediaeval  stained-glass  and  picturesque  cas- 
tles. Carlyle  and  Chesterton  both  raise  their 
voices  to  sing  the  glory  of  the  "  religious  ages." 

But  the  sole  advantage  of  those  times  over  ours 
ii 


THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

is  their  perspective.  It  is  "  distance  lends  enchant- 
ment to  the  view."  Study  them,  come  close  to 
them,  and  you  will  find  that  the  religion  of  Dante's 
day,  as  Symonds  said  of  its  civilization,  was 
founded  on  a  dung-heap. 

Their  theology  was  based  upon  intellectual  dis- 
honesty. Their  pious  emotions  were  saturated 
with  cruelty.  Their  faiths  were  the  war-cries  of 
party  spirit.  The  religious  wars  in  which  they 
constantly  engaged  were  infernal  caricatures  of 
that  pure  spiritual  conquest  Jesus  set  before  him. 

The  flavor  of  the  religion  of  the  past  is  incense. 
The  flavor  of  modern  religious  life  is  soap. 

We  are  no  more  applying  the  gospel  to  the  sur- 
face of  the  open  sore  of  the  world:  we  are  treat- 
ing the  cause.  We  do  not  display  our  love  for 
mankind  by  largess  to  the  picturesque  beggars  by 
the  church  door;  we  are  patiently  endeavoring  to 
rearrange  our  business  system  and  governmental 
system  so  that  all  may  have  a  chance  to  work  at 
living  wages,  and  begging  cease. 

To-day  we  also,  "  for  Christ's  sake/'  are  widen- 
ing our  parks,  seeking  to  curb  the  irresponsible 
power  of  money,  rescuing  little  children  from 
stunting  labor  and  putting  them  in  free  schools, 
giving  women  justice  and  equality  instead  of  tyr- 

12 


THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

anny  garlanded  with  sensuous  poetry,  going  to 
live  in  settlements  in  the  slums  instead  of  building 
missions  there,  cleaning  up  Havana  and  Panama 
instead  of  marching  against  yellow  fever  with  a 
crucifix,  circulating  literature  and  establishing  edu- 
cation among  the  masses  to  enable  them  to  govern 
themselves  instead  of  training  a  few  to  govern 
them. 

Never  before  in  the  history  of  the  world  were 
the  fundamental  principles  of  Jesus  more  appealed 
to.  Never  before  have  men  so  defied  ancient  and 
established  fraud.  Never  has  humanity  seemed 
more  worth  while.  Never  have  classes,  castes, 
traditions  and  all  vested  humbuggery  been  so  un- 
safe. 

Daily  newspapers  let  the  dread  light  of  ex- 
posure through  courts  and  camps.  Demos  has  a 
thousand  eyes.  Kings  and  presidents,  old  fam- 
ilies and  millionaires,  must  show  cause  before  the 
fifteen  cent  magazines  and  the  one  cent  dailies. 
The  rats  and  bats  that  for  ages  have  fattened  on 
human  weakness  and  ignorance  are  greatly  dis- 
turbed. 

And  what  this  age  needs  is  to  realize  that  this  is 
Christianity! 

This  is  precisely  what  Jesus  meant! 
13 


THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

We  are  actually  doing,  unconsciously,  and  all 
the  better  so,  the  very  business  of  Christ. 

For  we  read  that  when  the  young  Nazarene 
came  to  his  home  town  and  entered  the  syna- 
gogue, the  book  of  the  prophet  Isaiah  was  handed 
him,  and  when  he  had  opened  the  book,  he  found 
the  place  where  it  was  written : 

4  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because 
he  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  the  good  news  to 
the  poor;  he  hath  sent  me  to  heal  the  broken- 
hearted, to  preach  deliverance  to  the  captives,  and 
recovery  of  sight  to  the  blind,  to  set  at  liberty  them 
that  are  bruised."  And  he  added,  as  he  closed 
the  book :  "  This  day  is  this  scripture  fulfilled  in 
your  ears." 

Hundreds  of  earnest  souls  are  doing  this  Christ- 
work  who  are  under  the  dominance  of  the  tradi- 
tional notion  that  Christ  is  only  to  be  found 
in  some  provincial,  narrow  organization.  They 
need  to  realize  that  they,  too,  are  of  the  Christ 
Company.  They  need  to  sing  the  ancient  can- 
ticle : 

Doubtless,  O  God,  thou  art  our  Father, 
Though  Abraham  be  ignorant  of  us, 
And  Israel  acknowledge  us  not. 

14 


THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

It  is  they  who  form  the  real,  invisible  Church. 

That  Church  is  inherently  unorganizable.  To 
organize  means  to  go  in  for  money,  influence  and 
other  forms  of  power  over  men  aside  from  pure 
character,  spiritual,  personal  influence. 

You  cannot  organize  religion  any  more  than 
you  can  organize  poetry. 

No  money  ever  helped  Jesus'  work  in  the  world, 
no  authority  ever  furthered  it ;  just  as  no  money  or 
authority  can  hinder  it. 

The  Church  of  Jesus  is  not  "  a  mighty  army." 
The  whole  military  analogy  stinks  of  cheap  suc- 
cess. 

All  "  campaigns,"  all  efforts  to  raise  money,  to 
multiply  church  members,  and  otherwise  to  ad- 
vance the  cause  of  Jesus,  as  we  would  advance  the 
cause  of  some  candidate  for  President,  displays  a 
blindness  to  Jesus*  very  nature  and  oft-repeated 
notions. 

For,  if  you  ask  him,  he  tells  you  that  his 
triumph  is  like  a  seed  growing  secretly,  a  lump  of 
leaven,  the  coming  of  the  wind;  and  he  will  tell 
you  to  beware  of  money,  to  refuse  the  seats  of 
high  authority. 

Against  the  mighty  organization  of  the  Roman 
empire  he  set  his  personality  alone.  It  was 

15 


THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

enough.  The  golden  thrones  have  been  tumbled 
down;  the  thunder  of  the  legions  is  forever  still; 
but  the  personality  of  the  wise  and  gentle  Son  of 
Man  is  the  most  powerful  force  in  humanity  now, 
two  thousand  years  after. 

Why  can  we  not  understand  this?  Religion  is 
adjectival:  it  is  not  a  noun.  It  is  the  quality  of 
our  work;  it  is  not  some  special  work.  It  is  the 
tune  of  all  deeds;  it  is  no  particular  set  of  deeds. 

The  essays  in  this  book  are  not  to  church  mem- 
bers. They  are  to  human  beings. 

They  were  not  spoken  in  any  temple ;  they  were 
first  printed  in  a  newspaper. 

In  provincial  days  the  church  bell  rang,  and  the 
neighbors  gathered  in  the  meeting  house,  which 
thus  was  the  symbol  of  communal  righteousness 
and  aspiration. 

To-day  the  ends  of  the  earth  are  neighbors,  by 
the  printed  page.  The  new  congregation  gathers 
about  the  newspaper,  for  better  or  for  worse. 

I  am  inclined  to  fancy  that  if  Jesus  were  to  come 
to-day  he  would  come  into  the  columns  of  the 
daily  paper,  and  speak  there,  amidst  the  cries  of 
advertisers,  the  contention  of  politics,  the  antics  of 
the  joke-makers,  the  parade  of  business;  for  there 
he  would  find  that  same  common  people  that  once 

16 


THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

"  heard  him  gladly  "  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem 
and  the  by-ways  of  Galilee.  For  his  message  is 
not  of  the  temple,  but  of  the  street. 

In  the  name  and  spirit  of  Jesus  therefore  I  send 
these  little  preachments  to  the  common  folks,  to  all 
those  who  for  one  reason  or  another  are  groping, 
in  the  hope  that  something  herein  may  make  again 
clear  and  dear  to  them  those  evergreen  spiritual 
truths  and  emotions  which  are  the  chief  beauty  of 
souls. 

The  River  of  God  runs  through  the  streets  of 
the  city. 

For  a  Chicago  newspaper  I  once  wrote,  concern- 
ing Jane  Addams  of  Hull  House : 

"  There  is  a  river  the  streams  whereof 

Make  glad  the  City  of  God." 
I  went  through  death  to  find  this  thing 
And  all  through  heaven  I  trod. 

Now  heaven's  a  wide  and  wonderful  place, 

But  the  people  are  much  as  we, 
So  I  came  back  home  in  sorrow  and  thirst, 

And  there  one  said  to  me: 


THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

"  O  fool,  you  have  traveled  far  to  find 

What  youVe  crossed  over  time  and  again ; 
For  the  River  of  God  is  in  Halsted  Street 
And  is  running  black  with  men." 

"  Then  maybe  Chicago's  the  City  of  God?  " 

Said  I.     "Perhaps,"  said  he; 
"  For  to  find  that  City  you  need  no  wings 

To  fly,  but  eyes  to  see. 

"  And  low  in  the  rushes  the  river  sings, 

And  sweet  is  its  spirit  lure, 
For  it  waters  the  joys  of  loving  and  living 
That  grow  in  the  hearts  of  the  poor." 

So  I  took  me  a  place  in  the  City  slums 
Where  the  River  runs  night  and  day, 

And  there  I  sit  'neath  the  Tree  of  Life 
And  teach  the  children  to  play. 

And  ever  I  soil  my  hands  in  the  River, 

But  ever  it  cleans  my  soul; 
As  I  draw  from  the  deep  with  the  Silver  Cord, 

And  I  fill  the  Golden  Bowl. 


18 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD  —  RELIGION   AND   THE  MODERN 

MIND 7 

LAME  AND  LOVELY 21 

THE  UNIVERSAL  CREED 26 

FRIENDSHIP 31 

PREPARATION 35 

THE  INSIGHT  OF  LOVE 39 

MAN  Is  A  SPIRIT 43 

THE  WASTE  IN  HATE 47 

THE  ESCAPE  FROM  SELF 51 

THE  LOVE  OF  WOMAN 55 

THE  MOTHER  OF  EVIL 59 

MONEY 63 

POINTS  OF  SOCIAL  DECAY 67 

REDEMPTION  BY  SELF-RESPECT 71 

THE  SIMPLICITY  OF  MASTERS 75 

THE  RESERVES 79 

FERMENTING  THOUGHTS 83 

RELIGIOUS  VALUE  OF  A  SENSE  OF  HUMOR 87 

THE  DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  GOOD  AND  BAD 91 

CHILDLIKENESS  AND  CHILDISHNESS 95 

PRAYER 101 

THE  SIN  OP  SENSITIVENESS 105 

THEY  ALL  Do  IT 109 

THE  PRACTICAL  USES  OF  DEATH 113 

19 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

OTHERWORLDLINESS 117 

THE  SERMON  OF  THE  CLOCK 121 

ON  GOING  TO  CHURCH 127 

THE  EYE  OF  THE  SOUL 132 

LOVING  GOD 136 

THEI  USES  OF  CONFESSION 141 

THE  HEART  OF  FATALISM 146 

A  PREACHMENT  TO  PREACHERS 151 

BEYOND  THE  GRAVE 155 

YOKE  JOY 160 

THE  SOUL  LAOCOON 165 

THE  CENTER  OF  THINGS 170 

THE  THREE  SPHINXES  BY  THE  ROAD 175 

THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  ROCK 179 

THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE    .......  183 

SALVATION  BY  RESPONSIBILITY   .     .     . 187 

LOVE  THE  TEST  OF  LIFE 191 

THE  TEETH  AND  CLAWS  OF  ALTRUISM 195 

-IMITATION  IN  RELIGION 199 

Do  THE  MEEK  MAKE  GOOD? 203 

WIDENING 207 

JESUS  OUT  OF  DOORS 211 


20 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

And  in  the  archives  of  heaven  I  had  grace  to 
read,  how  that  once  the  angel  Nadir,  being  exiled 
from  his  place  by  mortal  passion,  upswinging  on 
the  wings  of  parental  love,  appeared  for  a  brief 
instant  in  his  station,  and,  depositing  a  wondrous 
birth,  straightway  disappeared.  And  this  charge 
was  the  self-same  babe  who  goeth  lame  and  lovely. 

—  CHARLES  LAMB. 

AT  first  thought  we  seem  to  be  drawn  toward 
one  another  by  our  excellences,  but  a  little  re- 
flection will  convince  us  that  our  truest  attraction 
lies  in  our  defects. 

Man's  "  lower  nature  "  has  come  in  for  hard 
knocks  by  nearly  all  moralists,  but  it  is  none  the 
less  the  cement  of  our  sociality. 

As  humanity  is  now  constructed,  it  is  hard  to  see 
how  there  could  be  any  love,  any  family  life,  or 
anything  at  all,  in  life  or  literature,  except  the 
drabs  and  grays,  were  it  not  for  the  much  berated 
animalities. 

21 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

We  speak  of  *'  the  communion  of  saints,"  but  is 
there  not  also  a  communion  of  sinners  —  are  we 
not  bound  together  by  our  lapses? 

I  do  not  write  this  in  praise  of  immorality.  I 
am  no  "  deviPs  advocate."  Over  and  over  again, 
whoever  speaks  of  moral  laws  at  all  must  sound 
the  warning  that  what  he  says  must  not  be  carried 
too  far;  that,  no  matter  what  his  truth,  it  is  but 
half  the  truth;  the  other  half  abiding  in  the  com- 
mon sense,  balance,  and  judgment  of  the  reader's 
mind. 

And  truly  this  unity  in  fault  may  be  pushed  to 
the  extreme  indicated  by  Hawthorne  in  his  "  Mar- 
ble Faun,"  where  he  speaks  of  the  brotherhood  of 
crime,  and  how  all  murderers,  for  instance,  from 
them  that  slew  Caesar  by  Pompey's  pillar  to  the 
last  blood-guilty  wretch  named  in  to-day's  paper, 
have  joined  invisible  hands  in  spiritual  kinship. 

But  the  truth  of  which  I  speak  is  to  be  taken 
with  care  and  niceness.  Using  thus  due  discrimi- 
nation, we  can  get  good  out  of  the  fact  that  prac- 
tically all  loveliness  is  lame. 

Love  does  not  leap  toward  perfection;  it  clings 
to  imperfections.  No  class  is  so  universally  loved 
as  babies,  who  are  most  incomplete.  It  is  their 
helplessness  that  appeals;  and  all  our  affection 

22 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

rushes  forth  in  response.  So  also  a  mother  will 
love  a  crippled  child  more  than  a  sound  one. 

Have  you  never  observed  how  a  little  weakness 
in  a  hero  brings  him  near?  That  story  telling  of 
Lincoln,  which  was  the  main  accusation  against 
him  his  enemies  made,  endeared  him  to  the  peo* 
pie.  And  not  a  little  of  his  hold  upon  our  tender- 
ness is  due,  I  believe,  to  his  most  unprepossessing 
of  faces. 

Washington  never  made  a  neater  stroke  to  con- 
quer "  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen  "  than  when 
he  lost  his  temper  that  time  in  battle,  and  said 
things  that  are  expurgated  from  school  histories. 

Whoever  construes  this  as  a  recommendation  of 
evil  misses  the  point.  For  the  point,  the  moral 
bearing,  is  this :  That  no  person  should  lose  heart 
and  hope  because  of  his  mistakes.  Slips,  errors, 
and  sins  have  the  quality  of  lovely  lameness  only 
in  those  who  struggle  against  them  and  fall  be- 
cause of  their  humanity.  Not  to  struggle,  but  to 
turn  and  love  and  follow  evil  for  its  own  sake,  is 
not  human  at  all ;  it  is  devilish. 

To  err  is  human,  but  not  wholly.  What  is 
really  human  is  to  err  and  hate  it ;  to  sin  and  loathe 
ourselves  for  it,  to  slip  and  to  be  ashamed  of  our 
slipping. 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

And  it  is  in  this  battling,  this  Alp-climbing,  that 
characterizes  the  human  soul,  that  its  loveliness  in- 
heres. We  admire  those  who  are  on  the  heights; 
we  love  those  who  are  scrambling  up,  with  torn 
hands,  bleeding  knees,  doubting  hearts,  spent 
breath,  full  of  fears  —  but  climbing,  climbing ! 

John  has  a  light-giving  saying:  "Herein  is 
love;  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  He  loved 
us."  Love  is  always  from  the  higher  to  the  lower, 
from  the  more  to  the  less  perfect.  So  the  Christ 
was  called  "  the  Friend  of  Sinners." 

Any  soul  that  has  genuine  greatness,  the  kind  of 
holiness  that  springs  from  grandeur  of  soul  in- 
stead of  from  refined  egoism,  will  ever  be  smitten 
with  love  toward  the  weak  and  passion  cursed,  and 
not  with  disgust.  It  is  the  mark  of  Jesus'  majesty 
that  he  was  drawn  so  mightily  to  our  foolish  and 
vice-shot  humanity.  Contempt  has  no  place  in  a 
soul  that  loves. 

How  vain,  then,  our  fears  that  our  dead,  who 
have  been  long  in  the  pure  perfection  of  heaven, 
may  despise  us!  Directly  the  contrary!  for  the 
nobler  they  grow,  by  the  side  of  him  who  loved 
the  weak  and  wicked  with  so  miraculous  a  passion, 
under  his  tutelage  who  put  the  sign  of  the  cross 
upon  the  divine  stooping  to  our  lowliness,  the 

24 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

nobler  they  become,  I  say,  and  the  more  they 
learn  of  the  inward  mystery  of  love,  the  more  they 
stoop  to  kiss  our  blind  eyes  and  to  bathe  our 
twisted  wills  and  lusts  with  their  tears. 

"  Lame,  lame !  "  cry  out  all  the  heavenly  host 
as  they  see  this  toiling  band  of  mortals  painfully 
writhing  up  the  slopes  of  light,  "  lame  —  and 
lovely!" 


THE  UNIVERSAL  CREED 

Chi  non  stima  la  vita,  non  la  merita. —  He  ivho 
does  not  value  life,  does  not  deserve  it. —  LEON- 
ARDO DA  VINCI. 

Men  should  be  judged,  not  by  their  tint  of  skin, 
The  Gods  they  serve,   the  vintage  that  they 

drink, 

Nor  by  the  way  they  fight,  or  love,  or  sin, 
But  by  the  quality  of  thought  they  think. 

—  LAWRENCE  HOPE. 

IN  the  one  universal  church  to  which  all  good 
men  belong,  composed  of  those  of  all  faiths 
who  honestly  live  up  to  the  best  they  know, 
whether  Christian  or  pagan,  Jew  or  Gentile,  Cath- 
olic or  Protestant,  there  is  a  certain  fundamental 
creed.  This,  the  greatest  common  divisor  of  all 
creeds,  may  be  thus  stated : 

i.  The  good  man  sees,  acknowledges,  and  be- 
lieves in,  first  of  all,  the  difference  between  right 
and  wrong.  When  the  word  ought  disappears 
from  one's  vocabulary  he  may  be  sure  of  moral 

26 


THE  UNIVERSAL  CREED 

decay.  The  one  man  abominable  to  any  decent 
society  is  the  man  who  thinks  nothing  matters. 
We  can  tolerate  one,  even,  who  doubts  there  is  a 
God;  but  if  one  believes  there  is  no  line  between 
right  and  wrong,  then,  as  Dr.  Johnson  said,  "  let 
us  count  our  spoons  when  he  leaves." 

2.  The  good  man  believes  that  happiness  will 
come  to  him,  permanently,  and  as  a  law,  only  as  he 
practices  doing  right.     Joy,  peace,  and  bliss  are 
not  to  be  cozened  nor  juggled  from  God  or  nature, 
but  are  the  sure  portion  of  them  that  persistently 
do  what  they  think  right.     Doing  right,  of  course, 
does  not  always  bring  money  or  fame  or  other  ex- 
ternal desired  things,  but  it  brings  peace  and  poise 
to  the  soul,  as  surely  as  three  times  five  make  fif- 
teen.    There  are  no  more  exceptions  to  this  rule 
than  to  a  law  of  physics  or  of  geometry.     The 
cosmic  accuracy  runs  in  spiritual  as  well  as  in  ma- 
terial things. 

3.  The  good  man's  duty  (in  which  he  finds  hap- 
piness)  is  first  of  all  to  develop  his  personality. 
God  made  him  for  a  purpose;  his  joy  will  consist 
in  finding  and  fulfilling  that  purpose.     He  is  not 
to  be  some  one  else,  not  to  copy;  but,  using  all  mas- 
ters, to  become  more  and  more  himself. 

4.  It  is  his  duty  to  be  strong.     He  can  be  of  use 

27 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

to  others  only  as  he  has  force  in  himself.  He, 
therefore,  shuns  all  things  that  tend  to  weaken  his 
arm,  his  brain,  or  his  heart 

5.  His  duty  is  to  be  clean.     This  item  of  the 
creed  is  oldest  and  newest;  oldest,  in  that  cleans- 
ings  were  a  part  of  every  early  religion,  the  com- 
mands of  Moses,  for  instance,  abounding  in  lustral 
rites;  newest,  in  that  the  one  lesson  of  modern 
science  is  the  power  and  safety  of  the  antiseptic 
life.     The  devil's  name,  as  far  as  bodily  health 
and  mental  clearness  and  spiritual  vigor  is  con- 
cerned, is  dirt.     Dirt  is  the  one  enemy  to  be  hated 
with  all  one's  soul  and  to  be  fought  unto  one's  last 
breath. 

6.  His  duty  is  to  be  brave.     The  basic  sin  of 
all  sins  is  cowardice.     The  higher  the  realm  of 
life  in  which  we  move  the  more  dangerous  is  any 
kind  of  fear.     And  the  most  deadly  of  all  fears 
is  the  fear  of  the  truth,  or  the  fear  for  the  truth. 
Any  man  or  institution  that  fights  to  preserve  him- 
self or  itself,  for  the  sake  of  "  expediency,"  that 
is  to  say,  for  fear  the  truth  might  do  harm,  any 
man  or  institution,  in  the  words  of  Zangwill,  that 
proposes  to  live  and  die  in  "  an  autocosm  without 
facts,"  is  doomed. 

7.  His  duty  is  to  love.     Although,  according 

28 


THE  UNIVERSAL  CREED 

to  the  foregoing  points  in  the  creed,  he  is  to  de- 
velop self  and  be  clean,  brave,  and  strong,  yet  he 
is  to  find  his  motive  for  all  this  and  the  end  for 
which  he  does  all  this,  outside  and  not  inside  of 
himself.  It  is  at  this  point  that  he  rises,  like  an 
aeroplane  leaving  the  runway  on  the  ground  and 
soaring  aloft;  here  the  man  leaves  the  company 
and  similitude  of  all  other  creatures.  In  his 
power  to  be  actuated  by  unselfish  motives  he  be- 
comes as  a  god  compared  to  the  beasts.  He  lives 
for  his  wife,  his  children,  his  friends,  his  country, 
his  race;  so,  in  widening  waves  his  radio-dynamic 
flows.  The  good  man,  therefore,  hates  no  living 
creature.  He  despises  no  human  being.  In  him 
is  a  centrifugal  power  outflowing  to  inundate  the 
universe. 

8.  From  this  love  arise  all  graces  and  virtues 
as  naturally  as  peaches  grow  from  peach  trees. 
Loving  all  he  cannot  soil  a  soul,  nor  wrong  a  fel- 
low being,  nor  hurt  wantonly,  nor  usurp,  nor  push 
for  precedence,  nor  be  unkind,  nor  in  any  way  drift 
into  the  low,  poison  life  of  egoism. 

9.  His  one  aim,  last  of  all,  is  to  serve.     Strong 
in  himself,  fearless  and  loving,  he  arises  at  length 
to  the  platform  where  stands  he  who  was  called 
"  the  first  born  among  many  brethren."     He  is 

29 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

the  Master's  companion  and  also  can  put  away  all 
cheap  success,  all  luxuries  of  greed  and  dominance, 
and  repeat  his  Master's  words:  "  Let  him  who 
would  be  greatest  among  you  be  servant  of  all. 
I,  too,  come  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to 
minister."  Over  his  grave  may  be  inscribed  what 
Anthony  said  of  Brutus : 

His  life  was  gentle,  and  the  elements 

So  mixed  in  him,  that  Nature  might  stand  up 

And  say  to  all  the  world,  "  This  was  a  man!  " 


FRIENDSHIP 
/  call  you  not  servants,  but  friends. — JESUS. 

WHEN  a  man  says  friendship  I  think  he 
utters  the  deepest  word  in  human  speech. 
It  ranks  even  a  little  higher  than  love,  being  a  sort 
of  unselfed  love,  love  with  the  itch  and  hunger 
extracted. 

We  do  not  love  our  friends ;  we  like  them.  We 
love  our  children,  wife  and  parents,  and  kinsfolk. 
We  like  apples  and  custard  pie  and  a  cozy  fire  and 
a  good  bed  and  slippers  —  and  our  friend. 

Like  goes  farther  in  than  love.  Like  is  a  voice 
from  the  subconscious  self,  a  cry  from  the  inward 
and  unknown  me.  It  lies  behind  the  will,  beneath 
the  judgment,  in  the  far  darkness  of  our  secret 
soul. 

It  does  not  say  that  a  wife  cannot  be  also  a 
friend;  but  she  rarely  is;  she  is  usually  an  enemy, 
to  whom  we  are  most  passionately  attached.  And 
if  she  be  a  friend,  then  that  friendship  has  grown 
up  from  other  sources,  and  is  of  a  different  texture 

31 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

and  quality  from  the  sex  motives  which  make  mar- 
riages. Not  many  women  would  tolerate  com- 
radeship from  a  husband.  Perhaps  this  is  as  it 
should  be,  and  nature  needs  fiercer  fires  for  her 
necessary  results. 

Still  rarer  is  friendship  between  parent  and 
child.  It  is  an  amazing  thing  I  have  noticed  here, 
how  warm,  intelligent  and  cultured  father  and  son 
both  strive  for  friendship  and  cannot  attain  it. 
Sometimes  they  succeed,  but  so  rarely  that  it  may 
be  called  a  phenomenon. 

Whence,  then,  come  friends?  And  who  are 
they?  And  how  can  one  make  them?  All  an- 
swers to  these  pathetic  questions  seem  to  me  to  be 
unsatisfactory,  partial,  insufficient,  and  by  the  way. 
The  rules  of  the  wise  will  not  work.  We  do  not 
make  friends  by  being  noble  and  good ;  friendship 
does  not  arise  from  similarity  of  tastes ;  and  other- 
wise one  can,  in  actual  experience,  drive  a  coach 
and  four  through  all  and  any  of  the  prescriptions 
of  the  proverbial  philosophers. 

The  fact  is  that  the  secret  springs  of  friendship 
are  wholly  mysterious.  Searching  for  them  we 
must  report  like  the  Louisiana  sheriff  reported  on 
the  back  of  a  writ  "  duces  tecum  "  which  he  had 
been  given  to  serve  upon  a  negro  who  had  escaped 

3* 


FRIENDSHIP 

into  the  swamp :  "  Non  comattibus,  up  stumpum, 
in  swampo."  As  I  look  over  my  friends  I  find 
I  like  them  as  a  dog  likes  his  master.  So  I  con- 
clude that  this  emotion  must  originate  in  some 
Newfoundland  or  St.  Bernard  region  of  my  na* 
ture,  and  is  probably  one  of  those  instincts  not  yet 
eliminated  by  evolution,  something  I  share  with 
dogs. 

For  all  that  I  honor  it  as  the  best  thing  I  am 
conscious  of.  I  am  prouder  of  liking  my  friends 
than  of  any  other  of  my  small  bunch  of  virtues. 
When  I  think  of  Bill  and  Lige  and  Al  and  Ralph 
and  Newt  I  get  a  kind  of  warmth  about  the  cockles 
of  my  heart  no  other  contemplation  can  produce. 

And  the  bitterest  hurts  I  have  ever  felt  are 
those  made  by  the  disloyalty  of  others  whom  I 
thought  friends  and  trusted.  Nothing  is  so  salt 
and  nauseous  to  the  soul  as  the  taste  of  Judas  in 
the  mouth  of  memory. 

And  it  seems  to  me  —  for  this,  after  all,  is  a 
sermon  —  that  religion,  rightly  taken,  is  rather  a 
friendship  for  God  than  a  love  to  God;  and  that 
we  would  better  translate  all  the  Bible's  admoni- 
tions to  love  God  by  the  paraphrase  to  be  friends 
with  God. 

To  love  God  has  a  conventional  sound;  but  to 
33 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

be  a  friend  of  God  —  that  is  a  searching  and 
swordlike  word.  It  means  to  like  Him;  not  to 
avoid  Him;  to  seek  His  presence;  to  be  at  home 
with  Him ;  to  be  cheered,  consoled,  quieted  by  the 
thought  of  Him. 

Speaking  for  myself,  I  can  say  that  I  never  came 
into  this  comfortable  relationship  until  I  had  swept 
away  all  I  had  ever  been  taught,  dared  to  presume, 
upon  the  debt  God  had  incurred  toward  me  by 
making  me,  and  took  my  rightful  place  as  His  son 
at  His  table. 

It  does  not  require  any  assumption  of  holiness 
or  sinlessness  to  do  this ;  it  only  needs  to  presume 
upon  the  vast  noble-mindedness,  kindness,  and  for- 
bearing wisdom  of  such  a  heart  as  Jesus  reveals 
to  us.  It  requires  a  tremendous  burst  of  moral 
courage  to  believe  God  likes  the  kind  of  man  I 
am;  but  I  do  believe  it;  and  the  result  is  the  great- 
est ethical  dynamic  of  my  life  —  the  friendship  of 
God. 


34 


PREPARATION 

Before  an  artist  can  do  anything  the  instrument 
must  be  tuned. —  HENRY  DRUMMOND. 

ONE  way  to  open  a  locked  door  is  to  fall  at  it 
and   scratch,   kick,    and  shove!     A   better 
way  is  to  get  the  key. 

In  other  words,  pluck  and  force  and  will  power 
are  all  right  in  their  place,  but  they  are  far  from 
being  the  only  secret  of  success.  They  are  down- 
right silly  without  —  preparation. 

Knowing  how  is  half  the  battle.  Practice  and 
study  count.  Skill  and  efficiency  mean  a  long  time 
getting  ready.  We  are  familiar  enough  with  this 
truth  in  ordinary  matters.  We  send  boys  to 
school  and  prentices  to  the  shop,  and  would-be 
stenographers  to  night  school.  For  we  recognize 
that  the  untrained  man  these  days  has  to  get  off 
the  earth,  there's  no  room  for  him.  But  we  often 
fail  to  carry  this  primitive  common  sense  over  into 
the  more  serious  concerns.  We  forget  that  one 
also  has  to  learn  — *  how  to  live.  One  cannot  go 

35 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

at  it  tooth  and  nail.  It  is  not  to  be  stormed, 
forced,  and  stampeded.  It  takes  science,  training, 
and  practice. 

The  learning  how  is  hard,  always ;  but  essential. 
The  only  things  one  can  do  without  practice  are 
over-eating,  over-drinking,  laziness,  bad  temper, 
selfishness,  and  general  meanness,  also  uselessness. 
But  the  good  things  come  hard.  Take  humility, 
rarest  and  noblest  of  virtues.  The  only  road  to 
humility  is  by  being  humiliated,  which  hurts. 

The  only  way  to  patience  is  by  self-restraint  un- 
der irritation.  If  there  is  nothing  to  gnaw  and 
worry  and  heckle  us,  then  we  never  learn  that  beau- 
tiful art  of  patience.  The  only  path  to  belief, 
that  is,  to  the  only  kind  of  belief  that  is  of  any  use 
to  character,  is  through  doubt.  Faith  is  a  product 
that  is  ground  out  of  the  mill  of  dismay,  confusion, 
despair  and  struggle.  Intellectual  assent  is  cheap. 
The  confidence  that  is  a  triumph  of  the  soul  over 
pessimism  and  fatuous  reasonings  is  worth  some- 
thing. 

The  only  means  toward  rest  is  work.  It  is  to 
tired  bones  the  bed  tastes  sweet.  The  soul  can 
never  enjoy  letting  go  that  has  never  hung  on. 
Real  placidity  is  the  product  of  strenuosity. 

So  also  the  preparation  for  knowledge  is  love. 

36 


PREPARATION 

Truth  is  not  a  lump  of  something  a  man  may  go 
and  pick  up.  Truth  is  not  any  thing  at  all.  It  is 
relation,  a  quality,  a  shine,  an  odor.  It  is  not  per- 
ceived by  the  intellect;  it  is  perceived  by  the  heart; 
the  intellect  merely  criticises  and  classifies  it.  The 
secret  of  Edison's  discoveries,  and  of  Koch's,  and 
of  Marconi's,  is  love.  Only  love  can  see.  It  has 
the  X-ray  eye.  And  this  is  true  in  business,  or 
science,  or  literature,  or  art,  quite  as  much  as  in 
religion.  Brains  can  amass  truths  and  pigeonhole 
them  and  arrange  them;  only  passion  of  some  sort 
can  find  them  out  where  they  are  hidden. 

Sorrow,  disappointment,  heartbreak,  bereave- 
ment, all  such  things  are  the  anterooms  of  great- 
ness. There  is  a  state  into  which  a  man  can  grow 
where  he  resembles  an  ordinary  man  about  as  much 
as  a  fine  thoroughbred  horse  resembles  a  broken- 
down  hack  horse,  or  as  a  big  American  beauty 
rose  resembles  a  dusty  weed.  Nobleness  of  char- 
acter, grandeur  of  soul,  sweetness  of  spirit,  no  one 
can  get  these  without  being  prepared. 

Some  of  us  have  the  ignorant  notion  that  we 
could  be  noble  if  we  cared  to  make  the  effort. 
We  are  like  the  man  who,  when  asked  if  he  could 
play  the  violin,  said  he  didn't  know  —  he'd  never 
tried. 

37 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

What  a  deal  of  getting  ready  to  live  is  needed ! 
A  man  never  really  learns  how  to  live  till  he's 
ready  to  die.  And  if  with  most  of  us,  all  of  us, 
life  is  a  mighty  getting  ready,  then  it  is  a  getting 
ready  for  —  what? 

It  is  this  tremendous  question  that  unlocks  the 
door  of  death  and  gives  us  our  surest  hope  of  the 
life  beyond. 


THE  INSIGHT  OF  LOVE 

Faithfulness  to  us  In  our  faults  is  a  certain  sign 
of  fidelity  in  a  friend. —  J.  G.  HOLLAND. 

LOVE  has  been  called  blind.  That  is  because 
it  will  not  and  cannot  see  faults. 

So  men  have  despised  love  and  boasted  of  intel- 
lect, which,  they  say,  can  discern  the  truth  better. 

And  herein  men  simply  display  their  ignorance 
and  show  that  they  do  not  know  what  truth  is  nor 
what  knowing  is. 

For  a  living  truth,  or  the  truth  about  a  living 
thing,  was  never  yet  perceived  by  any  brain. 
Mind  can  see  dead  truths,  such  as  that  two  and 
two  make  four,  or  that  here  is  a  book  and  there 
is  a  man,  and  all  such  things  that  have  to  do 
merely  with  material  and  inanimate  propositions; 
but  truths  that  grow  in  the  human  spirit  are  only 
visible  to  the  eye  of  love. 

Whoever  loves,  sees;  and  whoever  sees,  sees 
only  things  lovely.  For  the  soul  of  a  human  being 

39 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

is  essentially  beautiful,  and  only  the  love  ray  can 
reveal  it. 

This  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  wherever  we  find 
love  in  its  purest  and  intensest  form  you  find  al- 
ways that  it  has  this  glorifying  effect.  In  three  in- 
stances you  will  find  love  at  its  best. 

First,  in  the  love  of  a  mother  for  her  young 
child.  This  affection  cannot  see  evil.  The 
mother  kisses  the  crippled  feet,  yearns  over  the 
weak  will,  and  sees  beneath  all  naughtiness  to  a 
substratum  of  charm  that  is  invisible  to  you  and 
me. 

Second,  in  the  first  love  of  a  man  and  a  maid. 
Here  Puck  has  squeezed  upon  their  eyes  the  juice 
of  that  same  flower  he  used  to  make  the  fairy 
queen  love  the  clown  with  an  ass's  head.  No  mat- 
ter how  gross  or  common  to  our  unlit  eyes  the  girl 
may  be,  her  lover  thinks  her  an  angel.  So  this  sex 
love,  when  raised  to  its  spiritual  potency,  is  the 
most  wonderful  of  all  discoveries.  To  the  infat- 
uated lover  she  has  no  faults;  they  are  but  eccen- 
tricities of  divinity  no  one  but  he  understands. 
He  would  not  change  her  in  any  least  way,  lest 
she  should  cease  to  be  she,  and  so  be  less  a  miracle. 
This  is  not  folly,  nor  blindness.  It  is  insight. 
For  any  one  of  us  is  precisely  so  beautiful  and 

40 


THE  INSIGHT  OF  LOVE 

glorious  and  majestic,  if  any  one  could  be  found 
who  would  love  us  enough  to  detect  it. 

For  awhile,  at  least,  it  is  given  to  us,  in  the 
passion  of  youth,  to  see  another  soul  as  angels  see 
souls.  There  never  yet  was  love  enough  in  this 
world.  God  send  more!  And  to  any  lover  we 
may  speak  those  words  of  Wordsworth : 

Thou  blest  philosopher  who  yet  dost  keep 
Thy  heritage ;  thou  eye  amongst  the  blind, 

That,  deaf  and  silent,  read'st  the  eternal  deep, 
Haunted  forever  by  the  eternal  Mind! 

The  third  instance  is  God's  love  for  the  human 
soul.  The  revelation  of  this,  the  emphasis  he 
placed  upon  this,  is  Jesus'  chief  contribution  to  the 
happiness  of  the  race.  For,  singularly  enough,  the 
reverse  of  all  the  creeds,  is  truer  than  the  creeds. 
God's  faith  in  me  is  more  saturated  with  redemp- 
tive potency  than  my  faith  in  Him.  The  thought 
that  infinite  goodness  can  and  does  love  me  is  the 
flame  that  lights  my  love  to  Him ;  as  it  is  written : 
"  The  spirit  of  a  man  is  the  candle  of  the  Lord." 

What  the  world  needs  is  trust,  or  rather  to  be 
trusted.  Slowly  and  through  painful  years  and 
centuries  of  intellectual  stupidity  we  are  to  learn 
that  children  are  to  be  made  better  by  believing  in 

41 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

them  and  appreciating  them  rather  than  by  flog- 
ging and  scolding;  that  criminals  can  only  be  cured 
by  trusting  them,  never  by  punishing  them;  that 
nations  are  best  conquered  by  disarmament  and 
defenseless  confidence,  more  certainly  than  by 
armies;  and  that  sinful  men  are  to  be  won  to 
worship  and  morality  by  revealing  to  them  through 
love  their  own  dignity  as  God's  beloved,  rather 
than  by  threats  and  curses ;  that  while  Sinai  and  the 
white  thunders  of  the  law  drive  men  to  despair, 
Calvary  and  the  revelation  of  divine  love  lift 
them  to  nobleness. 

Love  is  not  blind.     Love  is  the  only  thing  that 
sees. 


MAN  IS  A  SPIRIT 

My  little  spirit,  see, 

Sits  in  a  foggy  cloud  and  stays  for  me. 

—  MACBETH. 

The  final  goal  of  all  true  culture  is  the  liberation 
of  man  from  the  "  sensual  gravitation "  which 
every  one  experiences  in  himself.  Essentially  as 
a  creature  of  the  senses  man  begins  his  course  in 
this  world,  essentially  as  a  creature  of  the  spirit  he 
should  finish  it  here,  and,  as  we  hope,  continue  it 
in  another  world  under  more  favorable  conditions. 

— -CARL   HlLTY. 

OD  is  a  spirit,"  said  the  Master,  but  for 
that  matter  man  is  a  spirit  also.  We  are 
all  "  spooks."  The  Bible  says  that  no  man  hath 
seen  God  at  any  time,  neither  hath  any  man  at  any 
time  ever  seen  a  man.  We  are  kin  mysteries  to 
Deity. 

Carlyle  relates  how  old  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson, 
the  grand  mogul  of  English  literature,  used  to  go 
poking  about  strange  places  in  Cock  Lane  looking 

43 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

for  ghosts  when  all  the  while  the  streets  were  full 
of  them,  had  he  but  known  it;  he  jostled  them 
daily  in  the  thoroughfare,  and  the  good  doctor  was 
himself  a  wraith,  in  a  substantial  envelope  to  be 
sure. 

Because  you  have  seen  my  clothes  and  face  and 
hands  is  no  proof  you  have  seen  me.  I  have  never 
even  found  myself. 

The  first  and  most  pregnant  of  truths  is  that 
we  are  essentially  spirits,  and  we  come  into  the 
better  quality  of  living  only  as  we  recognize  this 
fact  and  cultivate  our  spiritual  nature.  "  To  be 
carnally  minded  is  death,"  said  St.  Paul,  "  but  to 
be  spiritually  minded  is  life." 

We  enter  the  world  as  little  animals ;  we  ought 
to  go  out  of  it  great  spirits.  An  old  man  should 
be  more  beautiful  than  a  baby,  for  the  baby  is 
but  a  charming  animal,  while  the  old  man  may  be 
a  lofty,  wondrous,  fascinating  soul.  That  this  is 
not  the  rule  and  that  we  dread  old  age  shows  that 
we  have  not  yet  learned  what  it  is  to  live,  nor  real- 
ized the  value  of  character. 

To  live,  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word,  is  to 
find  our  aims  and  enjoyments  in  the  spiritual 
plane.  But  spirituality  must  not  be  too  narrowly 
defined.  It  does  not  mean  an  absorption  in  reli- 

44 


MAN  IS  A  SPIRIT 

gious  emotions.  That  is  only  one  phase  of  it  and 
too  often  overemphasized. 

•Whatever  sets  our  pleasures  over  from  the  body 
to  the  mind,  from  the  flesh  to  the  spirit,  belongs 
to  our  spiritual  assets  and  helps  give  life  poise  and 
permanence  and  the  quality  of  immortality. 

The  American  people  do  not  yet  fully  appre- 
ciate the  moral  and  civic  value  of  the  arts.  We 
regard  music  and  painting  as  mere  amusements, 
good  for  those  who  happen  to  like  that  sort  of 
thing.  They  rank  a  little  higher  than  baseball. 
But  we  are  mistaken.  They  belong  to  the  assets 
of  civilization.  They  assist  in  redeeming  a  nation 
from  brutishness,  from  the  rule  of  coarse  lust, 
greed,  luxury,  and  bloodthirstiness.  They  are  a 
part  of  the  "  kingdom  of  heaven." 

The  love  of  nature,  the  power  to  get  satisfac- 
tion out  of  the  contemplation  of  the  blue  mystery 
of  the  lake,  the  splendid  spectacle  of  the  night  sky 
and  the  stars,  the  loveliness  of  leaf,  and  tree  and 
flower,  the  imposing  majesty  of  mountains,  the 
calm  of  rivers,  and  the  moods  of  the  great  ocean 
are  also  distinct  aids  in  bringing  our  lives  up  out 
of  the  slough  of  mere  bodily  desires. 

Not  that  the  body's  appetites  are  wicked. 
They  are  good.  God  made  them.  But  He  also 

45 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

made  hogs.  They  are  simply  low.  They  are 
good  only  as  they  are  kept  in  their  place.  And 
more  and  more,  as  life  unfolds,  they  should  fall 
away.  And  they  will  if  you  control  them  and  dis- 
cipline them.  All  their  fiery  forces  will  pass  over 
into  soul  power  just  as  the  rotting  mold  sends  its 
filthy  juices  into  the  plant  stem  to  rise  and  become 
white  lily  petals  bearing  fragrance. 

Thus  beginning  as  animals  we  work  our  way 
up  to  our  inherited  privilege  as  spiritual  beings  in 
the  wide,  beautiful,  and  healthful  sense  of  the 
word.  By  cultivating  the  mind,  by  science,  by  art, 
by  music,  by  the  love  of  nature,  by  intercourse  with 
high-minded  persons,  we  ascend  out  of  the  dirt 
into  the  sunlight  of  life. 

Nothing  is  so  valuable  to  assist  us  in  this  as  an 
intelligent  appreciation  and  reverence  for  God. 
We  ought  to  recognize  His  spirit  in  His  universe 
just  as  we  recognize  a  man's  spirit  in  his  body. 
Out  of  a  rational,  sensible  religion,  communion 
with  God  and  with  good  people  we  get  what  we 
find  nowhere  else,  a  constant  nourishment  for 
truth,  love,  honor,  self-control,  hope,  and  optimism 
in  our  hearts. 


THE  WASTE  IN  HATE 

But  I  say  unto  you,  love  your  enemies. —  JESUS. 

ONE  of  the  most  luminous  observations  upon 
hatred  is  that  of  Baudelaire:  "  Hatred  is 
a  precious  liquor,  a  poison  dearer  than  that  of  the 
Borgias,  because  it  is  made  of  our  blood,  our 
health,  our  sleep,  and  two-thirds  of  our  love." 

The  main  point  to  know  about  hate  is  that  it 
does  not  pay.  It  is  pure  waste.  It  exhausts  our 
vital  forces  and  gives  us  nothing  in  return. 

Baudelaire  well  calls  it  poison.  For  of  all  pas- 
sions that  lodge  in  the  soul  it  has  the  most  septic, 
heady,  and  yeasty  quality.  If  we  really  hate  a 
man,  we  ought  to  hate  him  too  much  to  hate  him. 

That  is,  we  should  not  be  willing  to  give  him 
the  pleasure  of  making  us  unhappy;  and  we  can 
surely  cause  him  more  discomfort,  if  he  bears  us 
genuine  ill  will,  by  letting  him  see  that  he  cannot 
disturb  our  peace. 

Why  should  I  let  my  enemy  rob  me  of  my 
sleep?  Why,  for  his  sake,  should  I  indulge  in 

47 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

thoughts  that  are  to  me  as  black  coffee  at  bedtime 
and  give  me  a  "  white  night  "  ?  I  shall  put  aside 
all  feeling  about  him,  even  if  it  takes  as  much 
moral  effort  as  a  drunkard  needs  to  refuse  his 
liquor. 

The  word  of  Emerson,  speaking  of  Lincoln,  is 
to  me  the  ideal  of  manhood,  freed  by  its  very 
greatness  from  the  self-torture  of  resentment: 
"  His  heart  was  as  large  as  the  world,  yet  it  had 
no  room  in  it  for  the  memory  of  a  wrong." 

More  practical,  more  mundane,  perhaps,  but 
not  less  forceful,  was  the  remark  of  the  late  Paul 
Morton,  who  answered,  when  asked  if  he  did  not 
like  to  "  get  even  "  with  any  one  who  had  done 
him  wrong :  "  I  haven't  time.  I  am  too  busy." 

A  friend  was  once  swindled  out  of  $5,000  by  a 
rascal  whom  he  had  trusted.  To  the  surprise  of 
every  one,  he  made  no  effort  to  prosecute  the  man. 
One  of  his  friends  asked  him  why  it  was  that  he 
did  not  take  steps  to  get  justice. 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  it's  this  way:  If  I  should 
go  to  law  I  could  possibly  regain  my  money  and 
punish  the  fellow ;  but  it  would  take  me  about  two 
years  to  get  the  case  through  all  the  courts,  and  in 
the  meantime  a  world  of  hard  feelings  and  feuds 
would  be  created.  Now,  I  figure  that  I  can  make 

48 


THE  WASTE  IN  HATE 

that  five  thousand,  and  more,  by  strictly  attending 
to  my  business  for  those  two  years,  and  feel  a 
whole  lot  better."  This,  I  take  it,  is  as  good 
philosophy  as  was  ever  uttered  in  Greece. 

To  get  rid  of  hate  and  its  spendthrift  results 
upon  us,  we  must  live  upon  the  heights.  It  is  all  a 
question  of  the  plane  upon  which  our  daily  think- 
ing and  feeling  take  place.  To  bear  grudges,  to 
harbor  bitter  animosities,  to  wish  evil  to  any  man, 
to  look  and  hope  for  disaster  to  any  creature,  is  to 
dwell  in  the  lowlands,  in  the  miasmatic  swamps  of 
life,  and  to  breathe  febrile  and  malarious  vapors. 

If  we  can,  by  a  moral  effort,  pull  ourselves  up 
to  the  mesa,  the  highlands,  where  move  such 
figures  as  Antoninus  and  Lincoln  and  Jesus;  if  we 
can  rise  thus  to  the  point  where  we  can  feed  our 
enemy  if  he  hunger  and  give  him  drink  if  he  thirst, 
we  have  the  double  satisfaction  of  triumphing  over 
him,  which  is  pleasant,  and  over  ourselves,  which 
is  an  infinitely  greater  pleasure. 

Dr.  Holmes  calls  argument  the  "hydrostatic 
paradox  of  fools  " —  that  is,  as  water  rises  to  the 
same  level  in  a  small  tube  as  in  a  large  reservoir 
with  which  it  is  connected,  so  to  argue  with  a  fool 
is  to  put  him  on  your  level.  "  And,"  he  adds, 
"the  fools  know  it!" 

49 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

So  anger  and  hate  and  all  such  heat  against 
wrongdoers  might  be  called  "  the  hydrostatic  para- 
dox of  malice,"  for  to  fall  into  bad  blood  against 
the  man  who  has  done  us  evil  is  to  descend  to  his 
plane  and  to  share  with  him  his  devil's  brew  of 
malignity. 

Hate  is  destructive.  Love  is  creative.  Every 
angry  feeling  tears  down  something  in  us.  Every 
emotion  of  love  hardens  our  life  fiber.  In  all  an- 
imal life  love  is  the  creative  instinct  and  hate  seeks 
annihilation.  Nowhere  does  the  pure  wisdom  of 
Jesus  shine  more  refulgently  than  where  he  says 
(and  he  practiced  it)  :  "  Love  your  enemies." 


THE  ESCAPE  FROM  SELF 

Speak  to  the  children  of  Israel,  saying,  Appoint 
out  for  you  cities  of  refuge. —  JOSHUA,  xx,  2. 

Every  individual  soul  has  a  history  very  similar 
to  that  of  society. —  CARDUCCI. 

AMONG  the  ancient  Jews  they  had  cities  of 
refuge.  The  rash  murderer,  not  with  mal- 
ice aforethought,  might  flee  to  any  one  of  these 
and  be  safe  from  the  wrath  of  the  avenging  kin. 
They  were  a  wise  people  who  thus  had  prevision 
and  made  provision  for  their  own  weakness. 

For  a  man's  intelligence  may  be  better  gauged 
by  his  knowledge  of  his  own  shortcomings  than  by 
his  consciousness  of  his  own  strength.  And  the 
one  person  against  whose  folly  and  enmity  one 
needs  most  to  guard  is  one's  self. 

I  have  therefore  my  own  cities  of  refuge, 
whither  I  flee  to  escape  my  implacable  enemy  — 
myself.  For  this  eminently  respectable  me,  that 
I  dress  up  in  as  good  clothes  as  I  can  buy  and 
would  have  all  people  think  to  be  sober,  high- 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

minded,  self-controlled,  and  good  —  yea,  that  I 
have  even  at  times  set  up  in  pulpits  and  on  plat- 
forms and  made  preach  and  lecture  to  honest  folk, 
telling  them  what  they  ought  to  do,  is  a  fellow  I 
should  hate  to  have  you  know  too  well. 

As  there  were  three  cities  of  refuge  in  Jewry, 
so  I  will  give  but  three  of  mine,  though  there  are 
others. 

First  and  foremost  is  work.  I  work  not  be- 
cause I  like  it,  for  I  would  rather  spend  money 
than  earn  it  and  I  could  loaf  as  thoroughly  as  the 
next  man;  nor  because  I  need  to  make  a  living, 
for  any  one  can  knock  off  work  and  be  a  parasite ; 
some  one  will  always  look  out  for  the  lazy  as  well 
as  for  the  sick;  but  because  I  am  afraid  not  to 
work. 

In  work  I  respect  myself  and  am  at  peace  with 
the  infinite  without  me  and  within  me.  When  at 
work  I  am  Dr.  Jekyll.  I  would  not  dare  to  start 
out  merely  to  live  a  life  of  ease;  I  would  be  afraid 
of  Mr.  Hyde.  Work  is  simply  the  salvation  of 
the  soul,  not  possibly  in  an  evangelical  sense  but 
at  least  in  common  sense,  because  it  saves  me  not 
from  theological  horrors  I  know  nothing  about, 
but  from  myself,  which  is  a  horror  that  "  comes 
home  to  men's  business  and  bosoms." 

52 


THE  ESCAPE  FROM  SELF 

Crime  in  society  is  largely  the  product  of  lei- 
sure. Most  of  the  ordinary  moral  lesions  could 
be  cured  by  sawing  wood. 

The  second  city  of  refuge  is  called  order.  I 
find  that  if  I  do  not  compel  myself  to  system  and 
regular  hours  I  get  nothing  done  at  all.  If  I 
worked  only  when  I  felt  like  it  you  could  put  it  in 
your  eye.  The  greatest  humbug  loose  is  inspira- 
tion. Perhaps  this  should  be  qualified  thus :  occa- 
sional inspiration  is  a  humbug. 

For  the  divine  afflatus  is  a  stream  that  runs  in 
grooves,  as  indeed  all  emotions,  to  be  strong  and 
dependable,  must  be  trained  to  come  at  certain 
hours.  The  heart  has  its  habits.  The  world's 
best  work,  noblest  poetry,  and  divinest  prophecy 
have  come  through  men  who  were  pounding  away 
so  many  hours  a  day. 

Of  course,  out-of-the-way  hints  and  whispers 
come  at  odd  moments  to  souls,  and  man  is  not  a 
treadmill;  but  one  who  depends  upon  feeling  like 
it  to  do  his  work  soon  ceases  to  feel  like  it,  he  is 
weakening  his  will  power. 

By  system  you  not  only  accomplish  so  much 
more  but  you  get  a  peculiar  poise  and  a  blissful 
sort  of  contentment  with  yourself,  the  same  sensa- 
tion you  get  from  seeing  a  swept  and  tidy  room. 

53 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

An  unordered  day  is  like  a  cluttered  desk  or  a 
frowzy  woman. 

The  third  city  of  refuge  is  called  wife.  Any 
man  would  be  ashamed  to  tell  how  many  vile  and 
blackguard  thoughts  have  made  at  him  only  to  be 
warded  off  by  this  heart  wall;  how  sometimes  her 
presence  and  the  touch  of  her  hand  give  peace  and 
avert  a  panic,  as  if  an  army  with  banners  had 
moved  to  the  succor  of  a  beleaguered  city. 

A  good  bachelor  must  be  either  a  strong  and 
noble  man  or  a  bloodless  paste.  Most  of  us  are 
neither  one  nor  the  other;  we  are  simply  human, 
and  a  human  man  needs  a  wife  as  a  locomotive 
needs  an  engineer,  to  prevent  a  wreck,  as  well  as 
to  make  him  go. 

These  cities  of  refuge  and  these  arts  and  ways 
of  saving  one's  self  from  one's  self  may  throw 
some  light,  perhaps,  upon  the  reason  why  there  is 
inserted  into  the  Lord's  Prayer  the  petition : 

"  Lead  us  not  into  temptation,  but  deliver  us 
from  evil  1  " 


54 


THE  LOVE  OF  WOMAN 

Amor  sementa  in  noi  d'ogni  virtute. —  Love  im- 
plants within  us  every  virtue. —  DANTE. 

L' Amour  est  un  feu  auquel  s'epurent  les  plus 
nobles  sentiments. —  Love  is  a  fire  by  which  are 
purified  our  noblest  emotions. —  BALZAC. 

THE  universal  opinion  of  mankind  places  the 
love  to  God  as  the  chief  motive  force  in 
morals. 

Right  next  to  this  in  importance  and  in  power 
comes  the  supreme  love  of  one  man  and  one 
woman. 

It  may  have  its  roots  in  the  desires  of  the  body, 
as  a  lily  has  its  roots  in  the  mold,  but  its  flower 
and  spiritual  consummation  is  farthest  removed 
from  earthliness  and  has  the  finest  ethical  flavor. 

It  is  amazing  how  many  saints  and  councils  and 
ecclesiastic  polemics  have  regarded  the  love  of 
woman  in  some  way  akin  to  evil.  While  religion- 
ists fulminated  against  the  danger  of  soft  smiles 
and  laughing  eyes  to  the  soul,  down  in  Provence 

55 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

the  troubadours  were  founding  a  better  theology, 
which  crept  over  the  Alps  and  touched  one  Dante, 
who  perhaps  more  than  any  other  genius  has 
rescued  woman  from  the  slough  of  sense  and  made 
her  man's  spiritual  guide.  The  substance  of  his 
gospel  was  that  it  is  woman  whose  soul  awakens 
the  soul  of  man  to  his  kinship  with  God. 

Michelangelo,  in  his  sonnet  to  Vittoria  Colonna, 
expressed  it: 

For  O!  how  good  that  God  must  be 
Who  made  so  good  a  thing  as  thee! 

The  ancient  Jews  had  their  "  court  of  women  " 
in  their  temples,  and  the  Mohammedans  deny 
them  souls ;  so  also  the  hermits  and  holy  anchorites 
prayed  to  be  delivered  from  them. 

If  our  civilization  of  today  is  better,  and  at 
least  it  is  kinder  and  more  humane;  if  we  have 
penetrated  into  the  core  of  all  religion  and  found 
it  to  consist  of  no  more  nor  less  than  emotional 
altruism  (altruism  with  dynamic),  the  prime  cause 
of  our  advantage  is  that  women  have  assumed  the 
spiritual  leadership  of  the  age. 

In  our  churches  it  is  "  the  court  of  men  "  that 
fringes  the  rear  of  the  meeting;  with  us,  contrary 
to  Islam,  we  sometimes  doubt  if  men  have  souls. 

56 


THE  LOVE  OF  WOMAN 

I  say  if  a  man  has  become  so  entangled  with  insti- 
tutional theology  that  he  cannot  tell  whether  or 
not  he  dare  claim  he  loves  God,  let  him  love  his 
wife.  If  that  is  not  loving  deity,  it  is  the  next 
thing  to  it. 

I  speak  soberly.  I  refer  to  ethical  power. 
Sincere,  loyal  love  between  one  man  and  one 
woman  is  to  my  mind  a  hundred  times  purer  than 
that  purity  supposed  to  bloom  in  the  unmated.  A 
good  wife  is  a  better  cure  for  unworthy  thoughts 
than  fasting  and  flagellation. 

And  equally  good  is  a  supreme  exclusive  affec- 
tion in  the  woman  soul.  To  utterly  love  one  man, 
to  choose  him  and  cling  to  him  "  for  better  or  for 
worse,"  is  not  to  be  called  conducive  to  religion: 
it  must  be  called  religion  itself. 

This  human  love,  romantic  affection,  which 
looks  to  marriage  as  its  normal  fulfillment,  ousts 
sin  in  the  best  way  sin  can  be  ousted,  by  what  Chal- 
mers called  "  the  expulsive  force  of  a  new  emo- 
tion." It  stops  moral  lesion  by  the  most  potent 
of  moral  antiseptics,  love  itself.  It  heals  the 
diseases  of  the  soul,  not  by  the  crude  methods  of 
bleeding  and  blistering,  incantations  and  amulets, 
but  by  the  rational  scientific  principle  of  "  assisting 
nature  to  throw  off  the  poison." 

57 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

It  goes  to  the  seat  of  life  and  empowers  there. 
It  stimulates  the  white  corpuscles  of  the  spirit  to 
devour  and  destroy  all  deadly  microbes  and  dan- 
gerous bacilli. 

It  is  significant  that  all  through  the  middle  ages 
men  worshiped  a  woman  with  a  baby  in  her  arms. 
It  is  still  significant  that  the  most  vigorous  reli- 
gious movement  in  this  opening  of  the  Twentieth 
Century  is  headed  by  a  woman. 

The  dying  Bunsen  said  to  his  wife,  as  she 
stooped  to  kiss  him :  "  In  thy  face  have  I  seen 
the  eternal!  " 


THE  MOTHER  OF  EVIL 

The  Mother  of  Evil  is  not  Joy,  but  the  Lack  of 
Joy. —  FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE. 

/  am  come  that  your  joy  may  be  full.—  JESUS. 

BY  a  curious  twist  in  the  morbid  nature  of  man 
the  sunny  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  has  often 
been  construed  into  a  shadow  of  gloom. 

No  one  had  a  firmer  hold  on  life,  a  sounder 
taste  of  its  pleasure,  a  richer  appreciation  of  the 
higher  possibilities  for  joy  concealed  in  existence 
than  Jesus. 

Unfortunately,  he  was  an  oriental,  and  by 
some  strange  will  of  destiny  his  cult  first  spread 
among  occidentals.  All  his  picturesque  imagery, 
his  poetry,  his  delicate,  piercing  shafts  of  intui- 
tional perception,  were  hardened  into  doctrines 
and  syllogisms,  and  his  social  truth,  intended  to 
permeate  "  like  a  lump  of  leaven,"  became  a  rigid 
organization. 

We  may  have  gained  something  —  who  shall 
say  ?  —  but  we  certainly  have  lost  much.  When 

59 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

you  pluck  your  lily  to  pieces,  scatter  its  odorous 
petals  on  the  ground,  and  transect  with  a  sharp 
knife  its  swelling  seed-sac,  you  may  have  added  to 
your  knowledge  of  systematic  botany,  but  you  have 
lost  your  lily ;  its  grace,  color,  fragrance,  and  fruit- 
fulness  — >  and  the  flower  was  created  for  those. 

And  we  may  be  sure  there  was  some  charm  of 
life,  some  fullness  of  deep  joy,  that  played  like  a 
felt  radiance  about  his  eyes  and  smile,  that  so 
drew  to  him  the  "  multitudes,"  for  the  common 
people  follow  only  what  smacks  of  life.  Most 
of  all  does  our  age  lack  in  the  realization  of  his 
warm  humanity. 

He  came,  he  said,  that  our  joy  might  be  full. 
There  is  the  cure  of  sin.  It  remained  for 
Nietzsche,  the  declared  enemy  of  our  faith,  to  see 
it  most  clearly.  "  It  is  not  joy,  but  the  lack  of 
joy,  that  is  the  mother  of  evil." 

There  never  was  a  mortal  sin  that  did  not 
spring  from  an  empty  heart.  What  are  all 
blasphemies  but  brutish,  twisted  prayers  for 
inward  peace?  What  are  drunkenness  and  all 
fleshly  naughtiness  but  the  struggling  of  souls  to 
fill  themselves  at  the  swine's  trough  of  sensuality? 
What  are  cruelties  and  injustice  and  oppression 
but  the  attempt  to  stay  the  appetite  for  joy  with 

60 


THE  MOTHER  OF  EVIL 

poison  and  bitter  passions  ?  And,  taking  the  whole 
range  of  human  wickedness,  murder,  envy,  hate, 
lust,  theft,  unkindness,  and  money-madness,  do 
they  not  seem  to  be  the  cries  and  grimaces  and 
wild  gestures  of  starving  gods  locked  out  of  the 
banquet  hall  of  truth,  beating  with  bruised  hands 
against  the  door? 

Whoever,  therefore,  plants  one  pure  pleasure  in 
the  garden  of  men,  and  teaches  us  how  to  eat 
thereof  and  not  sicken,  has  helped  to  stay  the  open 
wound  of  human  sin.  We  are  beginning,  these 
last  days,  to  perceive  that  the  way  to  make  the 
world  as  good  as  possible  is  to  make  it  as  happy 
as  possible,  and  not  as  miserable  as  possible. 

Economists  are  commencing  to  understand  that 
what  makes  slums  is  dark,  wretched  lives;  what 
makes  drunkenness  and  the  social  evil  is  emptiness. 

Our  new  gospel  is  unconsciously  the  old  one  and 
the  true  one.  We  are  trying  to  make  the  people's 
joy  full,  to  save  the  people  from  vice  and  death. 
So  in  Jesus'  name  we  may  not  be  building  lofty 
cathedrals,  as  they  did  in  another  age,  but  we  are 
laying  out  parks,  setting  apart  playgrounds  for 
children,  rearing  a  mighty  public  school  system  to 
shatter  ignorance,  promoting  science  to  woo  the 
truth,  building  hospitals  for  the  sick,  and  asylums 

61 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

for  the  insane,  and  blind,  and  deaf  and  dumb,  and 
feeble  minded,  transforming  prison  hells  into  sane 
reformatories. 

We  are  extending  art  and  learning  and  music 
and  the  drama  and  all  civilizing  pleasures  more 
and  more  toward  the  common  man,  establishing 
libraries  and  making  the  best  literature  cheap  and 
popular  —  all  in  the  name  of  the  Son  of  Man,  to 
shunt  the  vast  river  of  human  joy  that  for  cen- 
turies ran  only  into  the  pools  of  the  elect,  into  the 
broad  lowlands  of  the  people. 

To  this  end  all  philanthropists,  labor  unions, 
socialist  movements,  democracies,  scientists,  and 
schools,  march  along  different  roads. 

Law,  repression,  punishment,  didactic  warnings, 
and  prohibitions,  these  do  not  cure  crime ;  they  do 
but  "  heal  the  hurt  of  the  daughter  of  my  people 
slightly,  crying,  peace,  peace,  when  there  is  no 
peace."  Whoever  will  cure  us,  let  him  "  come 
that  our  joy  may  be  full." 


62 


MONEY 

Quel  bien  lui  en  revtent-il?  —  What  good  does 
he  get  of  it?  —  BOSSUET. 

SINCE  the  dawn  of  preaching  we  preachers 
have  been  threatening^rich  men  with  our  right 
fist  —  and  extending  to  them  our  left  palm.  It  is 
hardly  to  be  wondered  at  that  we  find  difficulty  in 
being  taken  seriously. 

And  our  advice  has  been  so  confusing  that  we 
have  not  had  much  effect.  For  now  we  exhort 
the  youth  to  all  the  virtues,  giving  as  an  induce- 
ment the  assurance  that  thus  they  will  be  enabled 
to  get  on;  and  again  we  turn  to  those  that  have 
gotten  on  and  warn  them  of  the  danger  of  riches. 
It  might  well  be  asked,  if  riches  be  dangerous,  why 
acquire  them ;  and  if  virtues  lead  to  riches,  are  they 
really  worth  cultivating? 

It  may  be  well,  therefore,  to  set  down  a  few 
common-sense  facts  in  regard  to  riches  and  the  re- 
lation of  them  to  the  moral  values. 

In  the  first  place,  money  is  simply  the  token  or 

63 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

sign  of  our  common  human  wants.  It  means 
power,  power  over  others,  power  to  make  our  per- 
sonality felt.  No  wonder  we  want  it. 

Again  it  means  liberty.  Poverty  is  a  curse.  It 
ties  the  hands.  It  binds  the  mind.  It  narrows 
the  soul.  One  who  has  to  sweat  ten  hours  a  day 
for  bread  has  no  time  nor  strength  left  to  develop 
the  higher  part  of  himself. 

Money  means  also  a  full  life.  We  can  gratify 
our  cravings,  whether  they  be  for  beer  or  art,  for 
Paris  gowns  or  Wagner  music.  With  money  we 
have  a  chance  to  grow ;  without  it  we  are  stunted. 

Money,  therefore,  is  simply  concentrated  —  we 
might  say  canned  —  human  value. 

It  naturally  follows  that  it  is  good  or  bad,  never 
of  itself,  but  only  as  giving  opportunity  to  its  pos- 
sessor. Here,  then,  we  have  the  moral  gist  of  the 
whole  matter :  money  is  simply  —  opportunity. 

It  unlocks  the  door  and  bids  the  cramped  and 
chafing  passion  go  and  do  its  will.  It  liberates  de- 
sire. Hence  it  simply  emphasizes  a  man.  If  he 
is  good  he  can  now  be  better,  having  more  scope ; 
if  bad  he  can,  and  probably  will,  be  worse.  If  idle 
and  useless,  he  becomes  a  living  fountain  of  idle- 
ness and  uselessness,  poisoning  others. 

So,  money  is  like  any  other  gift;  as  beauty, 
64 


MONEY 

which  adds  power  to  the  person;  or  genius,  which 
multiplies  the  efficiency  of  the  mind  and  hand;  or 
position,  for  kingship  magnifies  a  common  man  to 
heroic  proportions,  in  his  influence  on  other  men. 

Now,  the  sole  relation  of  morals  to  power  of 
any  kind  is  this:  that  the  moral  sense  adds  to 
power  —  responsibility. 

The  root  of  any  genuine  moral  feeling  is  al- 
truism. Given  any  desire,  it  becomes  moral  as  it 
takes  a  direction  toward  the  welfare  of  other  peo- 
ple: it  is  immoral  exactly  in  proportion  as  it  dis- 
regards others  and  looks  only  to  self. 

Wicked  people,  therefore,  are  those  who  live, 
think,  and  do  for  self  alone ;  and  that  whether  poor 
or  rich.  Whoever  says,  "  I  would  like  to  be  rich, 
for  I  could  do  so  much  good  with  my  money," 
should  examine  himself  and  ask  what  good  he  is 
doing  with  the  little  he  has.  It  is  all  a  matter  of 
relation.  If  one  is  not  helpful  and  liberal  on  $40 
a  month,  he  would  not  be  so  on  $4,000  a  month. 

In  the  ultimate  realm  of  morals  there  are  no 
commandments ;  there  is  only  one  test  —  do  I  live 
for  myself  or  for  others ;  am  I  altruistic  or  egocen- 
tric? 

The  dawdling  smart  set,  flitting  from  bridge  to 
matinee,  from  theater  to  bedizened  restaurant, 

65 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

from  the  club  to  the  horse  race,  are  wicked ;  but  no 
wickeder  than  the  bitter  poor  who  want  to  lead 
such  a  life,  and  who  curse  their  lot  because  their 
selfishness  is  bound  and  chained. 

To  the  real  man,  therefore,  riches  means  noth- 
ing at  all,  as  to  his  character;  it  simply  means  an 
opening  to  give  vent  to  his  character.  And  a 
clear-eyed  soul,  that  sees  and  realizes  what  re- 
sponsibility means,  is  never  eager  for  power  and 
opportunity.  It  is  easier  to  be  good  in  moderate 
means  than  in  riches  for  the  principal  reason  that 
it  is  easier  to  bear  a  small  than  a  great  load  of 
responsibility.  "  It  is  hard  for  a  rich  man  to  enter 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  just  because  a  rich  man 
to  be  moral  must  be  great.  And,  unfortunately, 
great  souls  are  scarce  among  great  fortunes. 

The  greatness  of  Jesus  was  not  in  his  wisdom, 
magnetism,  nor  ethical  perception,  but  in  the  fact 
that  he  was  utterly  altruistic;  that  is,  he  used  all 
his  powers  not  to  advance  himself  but  to  help 
others.  His  tormentors  unwittingly  told  the  truth, 
and  stated  unknowingly  his  very  secret,  when,  as 
he  hung  on  the  cross,  they  wagged  their  heads  at 
him  and  cried : 

"  He  saved  others;  himself  he  cannot  save !  " 


66 


POINTS  OF  SOCIAL  DECAY 

You  are  the  salt  of  the  earth.  Put  yourselves 
at  the  decaying  points  of  social  life  and  stop  the 
putrefaction. —  MALTBIE  BABCOCK. 

EVERY  man  that  has  in  him  the  health  of 
sound  principles,  owes  a  duty  to  the  mass  of 
men  of  which  he  is  a  part. 

All  genuine  conviction  is  militant.  A  sincere 
belief  always  wants  to  "  go  out  and  compel  them 
to  come  in."  It  is  essential  to  any  honest  faith 
that  it  desires  to  draw  all  others  to  it. 

Truth  is  at  heart  intolerant;  knowing  itself, 
with  a  fierce  certainty,  to  be  unspeakably  better 
than  error. 

In  most  things  we  know  ourselves  ignorant, 
children  facing  mysteries;  so  in  most  things  we 
should  be  tolerant  and  liberal.  But  in  the  few 
things  that  we  know  through  and  through  it  be- 
hooves us  to  be  hard  as  nails.  On  a  question  of  the 
trinity  or  the  miracles  let  us  argue  calmly  —  and 
endlessly;  but  on  a  question  of  decency  versus 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

indecency,  or  cruelty  versus  kindness,  it  is  a  word 
and  a  blow. 

Hence,  it  is  for  every  modern  soul,  who  feels 
the  strong  truths  of  civilization  coursing  through 
his  thought,  to  stand  for  them,  against  all  comers. 
He  who  has  the  truth  is  salt.  Error  is  putrefac- 
tion. Where  wrong  prevails  in  the  social  organ- 
ism, let  the  man  of  salt  thrust  himself,  as  his  duty 
to  the  universe. 

Certain  main  points  of  decay  may  be  mentioned; 
certain  places  where  error  is  flagrant,  fragrant, 
and  stifling.  First,  it  is  the  duty  of  every  child 
of  light  to  shine  out  against  the  ancient  world 
fraud  and  inherited  curse  of  militarism.  Where- 
ever  the  harpy  —  head  of  war  —  lust  shows  itself 
he  ought  to  take  a  shot  at  it. 

For  war  is  the  most  monstrous  putrefying 
agency  on  earth  to-day,  and  that  includes  all  mil- 
itary preparedness.  Whoever  believes  in  truth 
and  justice  should  do  what  he  can,  in  his  small  cor- 
ner, to  bring  about  the  parliament  of  man,  the 
federation  of  the  world. 

Again,  every  man  of  salt  and  health  should  do 
his  utmost  to  break  down  caste  wherever  he  finds 
it.  Whatever  system  or  organization  or  custom 
impedes  the  free  rise  and  scope  of  the  individual 

68 


POINTS  OF  SOCIAL  DECAY 

is  a  rotting  point.  All  select  classes,  aristocracies, 
plutocracies,  bureaucracies,  and  whatever  schemes 
there  may  be  for  controlling  the  people  or  the 
wealth  or  labor  of  the  people  by  a  set  of  persons 
who  are  chosen  by  any  other  than  the  people,  and 
who  are  not  directly  responsible  to  the  people,  are 
germ  centers  of  tyranny,  and  eventually  always  of 
injustice  and  cruelty. 

All  that  devious  thing  we  call  graft  is  also  a 
breeding  spot  of  social  disease.  In  whatever 
mask  it  appears,  however  polished,  honored,  and 
disguised,  wherever  one  sees  the  fatal  symptom  of 
public  office  for  personal  gain  he  ought  to  de- 
nounce and  oppose  it.  It  may  lurk  in  intricate 
tariffs,  or  sit  smug  in  wigged  courts,  or  blow  like  a 
sperm  whale  in  dignified  senates,  or  pervade  as  an 
invisible  spirit  the  circles  of  business;  but  no  mat- 
ter where,  how,  or  why  it  is,  it  is  rotten. 

In  the  nearer  affairs  of  life  we  may  safely  lay 
down  the  rule  that  whatever  threatens  the  integ- 
rity and  happiness  of  the  home  life,  where  one 
man,  one  woman,  and  their  children  are  gathered 
in  the  family,  the  oldest  and  best  institution  on 
earth,  is  foul.  Whatever  makes  a  good  woman 
blush  is  septic.  Whatever  tends  to  make  little 
children  unhappy  is  poison.  Whatever  gospel 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

takes  the  nerve  out  of  men  and  discourages  them, 
in  its  general  effect  is  unjustifiable  and  depraved. 
Also,  whatever  or  whoever  loves  and  clings  to  a 
lie,  to  anything  that  he  knows  to  be  untrue,  is 
pregnant  with  trouble  and  obliquity. 

The  only  healthful,  pure,  sound,  stanch  self- 
cleaning,  and  exceedingly  good  and  green  growing 
tlhing  under  heaven  or  in  heaven,  among  men  or 
among  angels,  is  —  the  truth. 


70 


REDEMPTION  BY  SELF-RESPECT 

It  is  hard  for  a  man  to  respect  himself  when 
he  is  denied  respect  by  all  around  him. —  W.  E. 
CHANNING. 

THE  foundation  of  character  is  self-respect. 
The  citadel  of  virtue  is  a  proper  pride. 

Out  of  self-contempt  flow  bitterness,  suspicion, 
yielding  to  sensualities,  and  the  acceptance  of  low 
standards.  Self-respect  is  not  egotism,  but  resem- 
bles it  about  as  a  good  apple  resembles  a  decayed 
one.  Self-respect  is  sound,  sweet,  and  healthy. 
Egotism  is  morbid  and  sore  to  the  touch.  Self- 
respect  is  tough ;  egotism  is  tender. 

Call  a  child  low,  and  bad,  and  lazy  and  you 
make  him  so.  All  accusation,  and  scolding,  and 
punishment  is  unpedagogic.  It  never  did  any 
good.  To  punish  a  child  by  beating  simply  proves 
to  him  one  thing,  to-wit:  that  you  are  a  bigger 
brute  than  he.  The  whole  business  of  breaking 
the  will,  taking  down  the  pride,  humiliating  and 
subduing  people,  is  utterly  immoral,  and  that 
whether  applied  to  children  or  to  grown  people. 

71 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

No  human  being  was  ever  morally  helped  in  his 
weakness  or  morally  cured  of  his  perversion  by 
any  other  means  save  one  —  that  is,  by  apprecia- 
tion. It  is  that  which  reaches  down  into  the  soul 
and  raises  the  prostrate  will;  that  and  nothing  else. 

Love  is  the  only  creative,  healing  force.  Hate 
and  all  the  arts  and  actions  of  hate  are  vicious. 
Anger  and  condemnation  are  devastating  always. 
Hence  our  whole  prison  system  is  ignorant  and  the 
most  fruitful  manufactory  of  criminals  we  have. 
Prisons  are  holdovers  from  the  dark  ages.  They 
are  vile,  stupid,  and  poison  fountains  in  society. 
Any  warden  of  the  penitentiary  will  tell  you  con- 
victs are  not  reformed  in  his  institution;  they  are 
punished. 

That  means  their  self-respect  is  broken  down 
by  all  the  ingenuity  of  devilishness  society  will  al- 
low, and  the  self-despising  wrecks  are  turned  loose 
again  on  the  people.  Any  system  of  justice  that 
starts  from  the  principle  that  a  criminal  is  to 
be  punished  is  unscientific,  unintelligent,  and  im- 
moral. Punishment  simply  means  vengeance. 

To  send  a  criminal  to  the  horror  of  the  peniten- 
tiary is  of  the  same  grade  as  kicking  a  horse  in  the 
stomach  because  he  shies  or  balks. 

A  criminal  is  such  usually  because  he  has  lost  his 
72 


REDEMPTION  BY  SELF-RESPECT 

self-respect.  And  the  prison  ought  to  be  a  place 
where  he  can  regain  it.  It  ought  to  be  a  school 
for  weak  wills,  a  training  house  where  human  na- 
ture could  learn  a  little  dignity.  It  is  refreshing 
to  note  that  attempts  are  being  made  in  this  direc- 
tion in  some  states  with  most  encouraging  results. 

The  worst  blot  on  our  civilization  is  that  we 
have  made  so  little  progress  in  the  cure  of  the 
socially  unsound.  Our  theology  is  practically  past 
condemning  souls  to  eternal  punishment;  but  our 
actual  sociological  practice  can  still  find  no  use  to 
make  of  a  depraved  man  but  to  vent  our  hate  on 
him  by  sending  him  for  from  one  year  to  a  life- 
time to  a  hell  on  earth.  Society  still  has  got  no 
further  along  than  to  strike  back  when  it  is  struck. 
But  it  ought  to  be  the  glory  of  organized  justice 
to  be  free  from  this  bestial  heat  for  revenge  and 
to  do  with  the  lawbreaker  precisely  what  is  for  the 
best  interests  of  the  community  at  large.  And 
those  interests  never  demand  that  he  be  taken  and 
hardened  into  a  professional  pervert,  but  that  he 
be  healed  and  set  right. 

That  we  do  not  know  how  to  do  this  is  igno- 
rance and  pardonable;  but  that  we  don't  try  nor 
want  to  know  how  is  disgraceful  and  unpardon- 
able. 

73 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

Jesus  was  right.  Tolstoi  was  right.  They 
were  not  crazy  nor  Utopian.  They  were  in  line 
with  sound  common  sense  and  with  the  known 
truths  of  psychology.  God  help  us!  We  apply 
modern  science  to  transportation,  and  cooking,  and 
lighting,  and  to  all  forms  of  business  and  comfort, 
but  not  to  the  cure  of  fallen  self-respect,  exactly 
where  it  needs  most  to  be  applied. 

We  have  left  off  flogging  children  and  have  be- 
gun to  study  them.  Let  us  leave  off  brutalizing 
and  stunting  men  and  women  and  begin  to  study 
how  to  help  them. 


74 


THE  SIMPLICITY  OF  MASTERS 

La  philosophic  nest  que  le  retour  consc'ient  et 
reflechi  aux  donnees  de  lf  intuition. —  M.  BERG- 
SON. 

THIS  sentence  of  M.  Bergson,  professor  in  the 
College  de  France  and  one  of  the  most  ad- 
vanced and  thorough  of  modern  philosophers,  has 
been  called  by  Edouard  Schure  "  simple,  conclu- 
sive, and  immense,  containing  the  whole  future," 
and  may  be  freely  translated :  "  Philosophy  is 
only  the  discovery  by  the  conscious,  reflective  mind 
of  what  we  already  know  by  intuition." 

Here,  then,  is  the  circle  of  wisdom,  the  return 
of  truth  upon  itself;  for  all  the  deep,  vast,  eternal 
laws  of  life  are  woven  into  the  very  texture  of  the 
soul,  and  the  old  man,  after  years  of  search  and 
wandering,  comes  back  to  the  little  child.  Emer- 
son said  that  "  when  God  has  a  point  to  carry  with 
the  race  he  plants  his  arguments  in  the  instincts," 
and  Jesus'  exclamation  was  to  the  same  effect: 
"  I  thank  thee,  O  Father,  that  Thou  hast  hidden 

75 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  hast 
revealed  them  unto  babes!  " 

It  is  only  among  the  partly  wise  that  we  are  fed 
with  involved  and  profound  sayings;  when  we 
reach  the  masters,  Epictetus  or  Socrates  or  Jesus, 
they  talk  to  us  in  the  language  of  the  street  and 
their  sentences  are  homespun  and  childlike. 

The  fakirs  are  complex.  Those  who  know  but 
little  and  would  seem  to  know  much  are  mysteri- 
ous. The  masters  baffle  us  by  their  plainness. 
The  lights  are  turned  low  in  the  fortune  teller's 
booth;  Jesus  taught  on  the  hillside  in  the  sun. 
The  road  to  wisdom  leads  through  and  beyond  all 
night  shades  of  dim  temples  and  sacred  woods, 
into  the  dawn.  The  real  truth  is  clear  as  the 
morning. 

We  shall  come  to  poise  and  peace,  therefore,  as 
we  learn  to  perceive  and  to  follow  the  few  great 
intuitions,  and  these  we  find  best  in  children.  In- 
stead of  trying  to  teach  children,  that  is,  drilling 
into  them  our  stupid  conventionalities  and  cow- 
ardly moral  compromises,  we  ought  to  let 
them  teach  us;  we  should  sit  at  their  feet  and 
observe  their  unconscious  revelation  of  God's 
secrets. 

Properly  studied,  children  will    teach   us   the 


THE  SIMPLICITY  OF  MASTERS 

three  great  arts  of  life  —  the  art  of  joy,  the  art 
of  faith,  and  the  art  of  reverence. 

From  them  we  may  learn,  if  we  be  humble 
minded  and  teachable,  the  art  of  joy,  which  con- 
sists in  living  like  birds  and  flowers.  The  child 
is  not  afraid  to  be  happy;  he  throws  himself  head 
first  into  what  pleasure  he  finds,  which  is  plainly 
the  purpose  of  nature. 

It  is  the  philosophy  and  religion  of  grown-ups 
that  set  so  much  value  upon  misery.  Of  course, 
we  can  twist  this  truth  into  an  excuse  for  sin  and 
folly;  the  purer  and  truer  the  law  of  God  the  more 
dangerous  it  is  in  the  hands  of  ignorance  and  per- 
version. 

From  children  we  learn  the  art  of  faith,  which 
is  merely  the  conviction  that  the  universe  and  its 
forces  are  friendly.  The  child  instinctively  be- 
lieves that  all  people  are  well  disposed  toward 
him ;  he  has  to  be  taught  the  adult  facts  of  hatred 
and  enmity  and  malice.  The  whole  progress  of 
the  race  is  through  fear  and  wars  and  distrust  unto 
the  millennium,  which  is  confidence  in  the  universal 
friendliness  of  men. 

Through  dark  theologies  and  harsh  political 
theories  we  are  working  our  way  to  the  ultimate 
child  truth  that  to  believe  in  one  another  and  not 

77 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

to  be  afraid  of  neighbors  or  antipodes,  and  not 
even  of  the  spirits  of  the  air  nor  of  the  Great  Spirit 
himself,  is  the  ultimate  solution  of  the  problems 
both  of  government  and  of  religion. 

And  we  learn  from  children  the  art  of  rever- 
ence. That  feeling  of  awe  and  wonder,  inborn 
in  the  normal  child,  is  the  one  secret  of  greatness 
in  grown  persons  if  they  can  retain  it.  From  this 
emotion  comes  all  poetry,  all  majesty  of  spirit,  all 
grandeur  of  character.  It  is  likewise  the  subtle 
cause  of  all  morality,  as  well  as  of  all  the  courtesies 
and  decencies  of  life. 

Can  we  wonder  that  Jesus,  when  the  disciples 
were  .disputing  among  themselves  who  should  be 
the  greatest  among  them,  took  a  little  child  and 
when  he  had  set  him  in  their  midst  said  that,  "  Ex- 
cept ye  be  converted  and  become  as  little  children 
ye  shall  not  see  the  kingdom  of  God." 

For  the  important  affair  is  not  getting  into  the 
kingdom,  but  seeing  it,  knowing  what  it  is,  realiz- 
ing and  recognizing  it.  And  we  see  the  kingdom 
in  proportion  as  we  "  discover  by  the  conscious 
and  reflective  mind  what  we  already  know  by  in- 
tuition." 


THE  RESERVES 

Si  succiderit,  de  genu  pugnat. —  //  he  stumbles, 
he  fights  on  his  knees.  (Motto  for  Will  Moore's 
tombstone.) 

We  have  only  to  set  the  one  annoying  circum- 
stance over  against  our  whole  relation  to  life  to  dis- 
cover its  insignificant  proportions. —  J.  BRIERLY. 

IN  Mrs.  Burnett's  charming  play,  "  The  Dawn 
of  a  To-morrow,"  a  millionaire,  disgusted 
with  life  and  bent  on  suicide,  wandering  through 
a  slum  district  of  London,  meets  a  street  waif,  a 
girl  named  Glad,  who  perceives  his  intent  and 
turns  him  from  it  by  her  naive  philosophy,  not 
knowing  him  to  be  a  "  swell "  and  thinking  him 
but  one  of  the  underworld  like  herself,  she  advises 
him  to  "  think  of  something  else,"  whenever  the 
suicidal  obsession  grips  him. 

"  The  Gospel  of  Something  Else,"  as  we  may 
term  it,  is  amazingly  practical  and  fruitful  in  im- 
mediate, definite  good  results.  There  is  always 
something  else.  The  one  distressing  thing  that 

79 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

threatens  us  may  be  dodged,  not  always  literally, 
but  always  spiritually.  We  can  get  a  man's  body 
into  a  corner,  but  the  mind  cannot  be  cornered. 

The  most  effectual  resources  are  those  within 
the  soul.  The  great  soul  is  the  one  with  uncon- 
querable resources.  The  thing  that  strikes  us  in 
Socrates  is  that  Athenian  spite,  prison,  and  hem- 
lock somehow  do  not  touch  the  man,  he  is  smiling 
within  him  superior  to  his  enemies  all  the  time. 
The  Bhagavad  Ghita  speaks  of  those  "  inner 
treasures  of  the  mind,  on  which  depending  one 
is  not  moved  by  the  severest  pain."  Amiel  says, 
"  Rentrer  dans  1'ordre,  se  soumettre,  et  faire  ce 
qu'on  peut."  [Get  into  step  with  the  universe 
and  do  what  you  can.]  Even  death,  that  seems 
final  to  most  men,  is  despised  when  it  approaches 
Nathan  Hale,  for  he  brings  to  his  rescue  the  over- 
powering odds  of  patriotism  and  is  happy,  regret- 
ting only  that  he  has  but  one  life  to  give  for  his 
country.  We  hear  no  shrieks  and  panic  fears 
from  General  Wolfe  as  he  dies  before  Quebec;  as 
they  assure  him  that  the  enemy  flees  he  cries, 
"  Then  I  die  happy." 

The  moral  grandeur  of  Jesus  appears  in  this 
connection.  Truly  he  has  "  meat  to  eat  that  his 
disciples  know  not  of.'1  He  sets  this  small  life 

80 


THE  RESERVES 

over  against  eternity :  "  Rejoice  when  men  perse- 
cute you,  for  great  is  your  reward  in  heaven." 

He  escapes  the  harassment  of  the  petty  by 
refuge  in  the  vast :  "  Take  no  thought  what  ye 
shall  eat  and  drink :  seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God 
and  his  righteousness,  and  all  these  things  shall  be 
added  to  you."  He  even  submerged  death  with 
the  flood  of  his  inward  glory,  for  he  "  endured 
the  cross,  despising  the  shame,  for  the  joy  that  was 
set  before  him." 

How  much  more  effective  we  should  be,  how 
much  steadier  our  hand,  and  accurate  our  judg- 
ment, if  we  would  learn  this  secret!  The  most 
important  thing  in  the  world  to  me  is  the  weather 
in  my  soul.  Let  it  be  sunshine  there  and  calm 
day  and  the  odor  of  hidden  flowers  and  I  can  front 
anything.  No  matter  how  terrible  the  trial  to 
come,  I  have  half  won  already  if  I  can  meet  it 
serenely.  And  no  matter  what  prize  and  joy  may 
be  given  me,  I  have  half  spoiled  it  if  I  take  it  with 
a  troubled  and  muddy  soul. 

Let  us  set  down  then  in  our  books  that  we  are 
absolutely  unconquerable.  Nothing  shall  break 
us.  For  it  is  only  the  one  special  thing  that  is  my 
enemy :  the  universe  is  my  friend. 

While  I  have  eyes,  no  one  ugly  thing  shall  dis- 
81 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

tress  me,  for  the  earth  and  sky  are  crowded  with 
beauty;  while  I  have  ears,  no  single  sound  shall 
irritate  me,  for  the  world  harmonies  cease  not, 
and: 

There's  not  a  star  that  thou  beholdest 
But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 
Still  quiring  to  the  young  eyed  cherubim. 

While  I  have  a  heart  no  treachery  nor  coldness 
on  the  part  of  any  one  I  love  shall  utterly  cast  me 
down,  for  there  is  true  love  somewhere,  and  for 
me,  and  if  I  find  it  not  on  this  planet,  still  my 
world  is  wider  and  none  can  rob  me  of  the  hope  of 
some  day  meeting  again  those  I  have  loved  long 
since  and  lost  awhile. 

Our  little  earth  is  clasped  by  the  majestic  sky, 
our  small  planet  is  surrounded  by  an  innumerable 
company  of  worlds,  my  insignificant  body  is  one  of 
a  billion  similar  bodies  now  extant,  my  whole  self 
and  all  my  concerns  are  as  a  drop  of  rain  falling 
into  the  Atlantic. 

I  take  refuge  in  the  infinite.  O  mine  enemy, 
you  cannot  find  me !  I  have  hidden  in  the  infinite. 
In  peace  I  sing  the  words  of  Mrs.  Browning: 

And  I  smiled  to  think  God's  goodness 
Flowed  around  our  incompleteness, 
Round  our  restlessness  His  rest. 
82 


FERMENTING  THOUGHTS 

Of  that  way  madness  lies;  let  me  shun  that! 

—  KING  LEAR. 

The  Greeks  were  right  when  they  made  Apollo 
the  god  of  both  imagination  and  sanity;  for  he  was 
both  the  patron  of  poetry  and  the  patron  of  heal- 
ing.—  G.  K.  CHESTERTON. 

HAVE  you  ever  noticed  how  thoughts  feel  in- 
side your  mind?  Some  are  satisfying  as 
bread,  some  fiery  as  pepper,  some  refreshing  as 
water,  some  heady  as  wine,  and  some  —  and  these 
are  they  I  am  going  to  treat  of  —  lie  in  the  mind's 
stomach  heavy  as  lead,  painful,  nauseating,  and 
making  one  sick  of  life. 

These  last  are  thoughts  that  ferment  and  do  not 
digest.  I  once  ate  a  ham  sandwich  at  a  railway 
lunch  counter.  I  found  no  relief  until  the  physi- 
cians had  made  use  of  a  stomach  pump,  and  I  did 
not  recover  from  the  effects  for  a  month.  There 
are  certain  thoughts  that  act  precisely  the  same 

83 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

way  within  the  brain;  they  cause   "mental  gas- 


tritis." 


In  the  mind's  cellar  everything  must  be  kept 
sweet  and  clean,  if  we  do  not  want  to  breed  spirit- 
ual fevers.  As  soon  as  an  idea  begins  to  "  work  " 
and  spoil  and  sour,  out  with  it!  It  does  not  pay 
to  go  about  this  bright  world  with  something 
yeasting  and  seething  in  our  souls. 

It  is  the  very  best  of  foods  that  spoil  the  most 
quickly,  such  as  cream,  beefsteak,  and  butter. 
The  cream,  beefsteak,  and  butter  of  the  soul  are 
love,  religion,  and  laughter. 

So  it  is  these  things  we  must  watch  most  care- 
fully. Love,  the  very  milk  of  life,  is  worth  all 
that  poets  have  written  and  fond  and  foolish  heads 
have  dreamed  of  it.  But  if  love  thoughts  are  go- 
ing to  "  keep  "  and  not  play  havoc  within  us,  we 
must  air  our  hearts  often  and  keep  them  clean  and 
be  on  the  watch  for  the  insistent  microbe  that 
dearly  loves  to  multiply  in  a  love  "  culture." 

Love  made  Dante  divine,  but  of  Othello  it 
made  a  crazy  fool.  Cared  for  intelligently  and 
kept  clean,  love  will  give  you  a  heavenly  peace 
and  glow  —  there's  nothing  like  it;  but  if  it  be- 
comes unclean  and  begins  to  spoil,  you  will  know 
what  eternal  punishment  is.  Whether,  therefore, 


FERMENTING  THOUGHTS 

love  shall  be  a  radiant  shekinah  or  a  driving  ruin 
in  the  brain  is  largely  a  sanitary  question. 

Laughter  is  good.  It  may  not  save  our  souls, 
but  it  often  saves  our  lives.  It  prevents  insanity. 
But  it  is  like  butter.  It  must  be  fresh;  likewise 
clean;  also  spread  not  too  thickly  over  the  bread 
of  serious  business. 

No  one  can  eat  solid  butter,  unless  he  be  an 
Eskimo;  and  no  one,  outside  a  madhouse,  can 
laugh  all  the  time.  Some  of  the  saddest  people  I 
have  known  have  been  those  whose  only  business 
was  to  find  something  to  amuse  them. 

And  religion.  This  is  man's  greatest  passion 
and  privilege;  hence,  also  his  greatest  danger. 
Sometimes  it  is  a  blessing,  and  sometimes  it  seems 
quite  the  opposite.  It  will  inspire  a  Francis  of 
Assisi  to  amaze  the  world  with  his  love,  a  William 
Booth  to  lead  an  altruistic  army  into  the  slums,  and 
a  Father  Damien  to  consecrate  his  life  to  the  lep- 
ers; and  it  will  strengthen  men's  moral  sinews, 
cheer  their  hearts,  brighten  their  faces,  and  cause 
them  to  be  a  sun  ray  to  their  fellows  and  to  tri- 
umph over  death. 

And  again,  sad  to  say,  it  seems  to  make  others 
morose  and  dark-souled,  narrow  and  bigoted,  con- 
tentious, and  even  cruel.  As  was  said  of  liberty, 

85 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

so  it  may  be  said  of  religion,  "  What  crimes  have 
been  committed  in  thy  name!  " 

Whatever  may  be  your  faith  —  and  every  man, 
even  so-called  infidels,  have  a  belief  of  some  kind 
—  I  wish  to  make  one  suggestion :  Keep  it  sweet ! 
Rest  assured  that  if  your  belief  makes  you  crabbed 
and  pugnacious,  or  critical,  or  morose,  then  it  is 
bad.  No  matter  what  your  creed  is  it  ought  to 
bring  forth  the  one  flower  that  makes  any  creed 
worth  while,  and  that  is  amiability. 

Clean  up  or  cast  out  every  fermenting  thought, 
whether  uncleanliness  or  distrust,  the  memory  of 
a  wrong  or  the  apprehension  of  disaster.  Feed 
your  mind  on  clean,  sweet,  wholesome  thoughts. 
Above  all,  do  not  indulge  in  self-pity,  most  horri- 
ble of  all  mental  toadstools ! 

"  Keep  thy  heart,"  said  the  wise  man,  "  with  all 
diligence,  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life !  " 


86 


RELIGIOUS  VALUE  OF  A  SENSE  OF 
HUMOR 

Humor  has  all  along  been  the  candid  friend  of 
religion.  It  has  done  more  to  hasten  the  disintegra- 
tion of  narrow  religious  conventions  than  all  the 
German  commentators  together.  Humor  is  a  re- 
ligious force  in  that  it  discounts  fictitious  values  and 
minimizes  the  petty  rivalries  of  existence. 

—  RICHARD  LE  GALLIENNE. 

**T  T  7HO  can  reply  to  a  sneer?  "  asked  a  the- 
VV  ologian.  The  answer  is  plain;  who- 
ever cannot  resist  a  sneer  had  better  look  to  his 
position.  For  the  most  searching,  merciless,  and 
effective  thing  in  the  world  is  humor. 

"  The  tragic  poet  rolls  the  thunder  that  fright- 
ens," says  Landor;  "  the  comic  wields  the  lightning 
that  kills." 

There  seems  to  be  something  in  laughter  that 
is  directly  opposed  to  the  reverence  and  awe  of  re- 
ligion. But  for  that  reason  wit  has  all  along  been 
for  piety  a  most  necessary,  if  bitter,  physic. 

8? 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

The  higher  moods  of  the  soul  have  always  a 
tendency  to  grow  unhealthy.  It  is  but  a  step  from 
the  sweet  ripe  to  rotten;  and  spiritual  ecstasy  has 
more  than  once,  in  the  world's  sad  history,  run 
into  refined  sensuousness,  also  into  the  worst  of 
tyrannies  and  cruelties.  And  what  an  argument 
or  a  scripture  text  could  never  reach  has  been  trans- 
fixed by  a  smile.  The  walls  of  many  a  spiritual 
Jericho-folly  that  have  withstood  laws,  arms,  and 
reasons,  have  tumbled  at  the  sound  of  laughter. 

But  the  best  quality  in  humor,  for  individual 
use  by  the  saint,  is  its  inherent  sanity.  People  deep 
in  love  do  not  laugh  much  because  they  are  quite 
crazy.  Egoism,  in  its  overdevelopment,  when  it 
becomes  a  besetting  sense  of  dignity,  when  it  makes 
one  feel  he  is  a  great  and  misunderstood  man, 
laughs  little,  because  that  also  is  a  form  of  insanity. 
The  religious  bigot  is  most  monstrously  serious, 
for  the  same  reason. 

When  we  say  a  sense  of  humor  has  religious 
value  we  do  not  imply  that  it  is  a  divine  or  heav- 
enly thing,  for  it  is  not.  But  it  is  something  fully 
as  necessary;  it  is  most  human.  And  what  re- 
ligion needs  as  much  as  heavenliness  is  humanness. 

When  one  looks  abroad  in  this  comfortable 
world  and  sees  the  infinite  amount  of  play  and  un- 

88 


SENSE  OF  HUMOR 

mixed  fun  which  its  Creator  has  written  into  it 
he  can  hardly  resist  the  logical  conclusion  that  God 
is  not  so  utterly  sober  as  we  have  been  led  to  be- 
lieve. "  Who,"  asks  Dr.  Holmes,  "  taught  the 
kitten  to  play  with  its  tail,  and  the  canary  to  perk 
its  head  from  side  to  side  while  singing?  "  It  can 
hardly  be  irreverent  to  conceive  of  Him  who 
planted  such  capering  instincts  in  all  young  things, 
in  romping  poodles  and  leaping  lambs,  in  birds  and 
insects  and  children;  it  cannot  be  a  sin  to  think 
of  Him  who  ordered  this,  and  made  the  blithe 
morning  and  all  morning  feelings,  as  being  jocund, 
and  having  somewhere  in  His  mighty  mind  a  strain 
of  mirth. 

Humor,  of  course,  is  not  always  right.  Every- 
thing human  has  its  perversions.  There  is  a  dev- 
il's glee,  there  is  the  snicker  of  the  gross  and  fleshy, 
and  there  is  that  goatlike  inanity  that  would  caper 
on  its  mother's  grave  to  raise  a  grin.  But  let 
such  things  have  their  day.  Our  deepest  rever- 
ences do  not  hear  them,  our  real  purity  cannot  see 
them. 

The  humor  of  a  kindly  heart,  the  friendly  wit 
that  is  the  bubbling  over  of  a  full  humanity,  the 
surgical  smile  that  lances  our  too  sickly  sentiments, 
the  sunny  laugh  that  with  its  genial  broadness  re- 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

bukes  our  narrow  thought,  the  disinfectant  raillery 
that  purges  our  egotisms,  these  are  all  friends  of 
man  and  true  him  to  life  and  destiny. 

If  it  be,  as  Carlyle  says,  that  in  the  center  of 
worship  is  sorrow,  it  is  no  less  true  that  all  about  its 
edges  is  a  fringe  of  humor. 

He  is  our  friend  who  makes  us  weep  for  our 
sins,  and  he  is  not  our  enemy  who  makes  our  fol- 
lies ridiculous. 


90 


THE  DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  GOOD 
AND  BAD 

Hast  thou  reflected,  O  serious  reader,  Advanced 
Liberal  or  other,  that  the  one  end,  essence,  and  use 
of  all  religion,  past,  present,  and  to  come,  is  to  re- 
mind us  of  this  only,  of  the  quite  infinite  difference 
between  a  good  man  and  a  bad?  —  THOMAS  CAR- 

LYLE. 

WITH  microscopic  vision,  Carlyle  has  here 
seen  the  rock  bottom  on  which  rest  not 
only  all  religion,  but  all  ethics,  morals,  and  de- 
cencies. 

The  thoroughly  bad  man  is  not  the  one  who, 
like  Lucifer  says,  "  Evil,  be  thou  my  good  1  "  He 
is  the  one  who  denies  the  distinction.  Goethe's 
Mephistopheles  was  a  better  Bad  Man  than  Mil- 
ton's Lucifer;  for  Milton's  hero  of  darkness  sulked 
and  raged  and  rebelled;  Goethe's  smiled.  The 
highest  impiety  is  not  a  blasphemy;  it  is  a  smile. 

The  wickedest  people  are  not  they  who  cele- 
brate the  black  mass  and  dance  in  witches'  sab- 

91 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

baths,  are  not  the  Ingersolls  speech-making  against 
theology,  nor  the  Nietzsches  couching  a  lance 
against  morality  itself;  all  these  are  as  orthodox 
as  the  narrowest  saints.  In  fact,  when  a  man  sets 
out  to  demolish  Christianity  he  really  joins  the  most 
absurd  corruption  of  it  he  can  find,  by  assuming 
that  the  peculiar  distorted  sect  he  selects  is  true 
Christianity.  Hence  all  the  so-called  militant  "  in- 
fidels "  are  really  the  friends  of  our  faith,  since 
they  help  to  purge  it  of  its  diseases. 

But  our  real  foe  is  Gallio,  who  "  cares  for  none 
of  these  things."  Morality  and  immorality  do 
not  concern  him.  He  will  not  discuss  the  place 
for  the  line  between  good  and  evil.  He  has 
rubbed  out  the  line. 

The  rebel  and  the  king's  troops  both  believe  in 
the  same  flag;  one  is  for  and  the  other  against 
it.  So  the  deserter  and  the  good  soldier  both 
have  the  same  standard,  which  one  runs  from  and 
the  other  toward.  But  it  is  the  same  flag. 

Even  so,  the  thieves  and  drunkards  and  wicked 
women,  and  all  the  soiled  and  vagabond  crew  we 
are  wont  to  look  upon  as  the  opponents  of  the 
good  and  pious,  are  not  they  with  whom  religion's 
danger  lies.  In  fact,  they  are  not  far  from  the 
kingdom.  Did  not  Jesus  say  that  the  slum  peo- 

92 


GOOD  AND  BAD 

pies  would  enter  into  the  kingdom  before  the  Phar- 
isees ? 

The  actual  danger  to  religion  is  found  among 
the  so-called  "  emancipated."  Those  who  hold 
that  white  is  the  same  as  black  if  you  have  the 
right  point  of  view,  those  to  whom  nothing  mat- 
ters, those  who  have  made  of  science  a  means  to 
rob  the  soul  of  its  power  to  blush,  and  have  re- 
duced conscience  and  its  motions  to  atavism  and 
molecular  gyrations,  these  are  "  our  friends,  the 
enemy."  A  shallow  wading  in  science  is  likely  to 
bring  on  such  a  moral  anemia. 

Bacon  tells  us  that  a  little  knowledge  bends  men 
to  atheism,  but  deeper  goings  bring  them  about  to 
religion.  And  Tennyson  warns  his  too  sciolistic 
age: 

Hold  thou  the  Good,   define  it  well 
For  fear  divine  philosophy 
Should  go  beyond  the  mark  and  be 
Procuress  to  the  lords  of  hell. 

If  there  is  any  one  thing  that  the  wisdom  of 
all  humanity,  east  and  west,  has  beaten  out  of 
the  mixture  and  confusion  of  human  hearts  and 
events,  if  there  is  any  one  pure,  golden  truth  upon 
which  a  man  may  leave  his  life  and  risk  his  destiny, 

93 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

it  is  that  the  word  "  Ought "  has  a  meaning,  that 
in  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong  is  hidden  the  fun- 
damental truth  about  God  and  the  hereafter. 

Out  of  all  the  whirl  of  arguing  sects,  the  specu- 
lation of  philosophers,  the  doctrines  and  counter 
doctrines  of  divines,  this  one  solid  and  wholly  un- 
shakable bit  of  rock  emerges  as  the  one  fit  thing  a 
soul  can  afford  to  build  his  house  upon,  to-wit :  that 
right  is  right  and  to  live  by  and  to  die  for,  and 
wrong  is  wrong  and  to  be  hated  and  fought  with 
all  one's  mortal  might. 

That  is  religion;  the  rest  is  trimmings. 


94 


CHILDLIKENESS  AND  CHILDISHNESS 

When  I  was  a  child  I  spoke,  acted,  and  thought 
as  a  child,  but  when  I  became  a  man  I  put  away 
childish  things. —  SAINT  PAUL. 

Verily  I  say  unto  you,  except  ye  be  changed,  and 
become  as  little  children,  ye  shall  not  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Little  children,  of  such 
is  the  kingdom  of  heaven. —  JESUS. 

An  ancient  proverb  warns  us  that  we  should  not 
expect  to  find  old  heads  on  young  shoulders;  to 
which  it  may  be  added  that  we  seldom  meet  with 
that  unnatural  combination  but  we  feel  a  strong 
desire  to  knock  them  off;  merely  from  an  inherent 
love  we  have  of  seeing  things  in  their  right  place. 

—  CHARLES  DICKENS. 

I  ONCE  had  a  silly  book,  compiled  by  some 
rabid  bibliophobiac,  and  entitled  "  The  Con- 
tradictions of  the  Bible,"  in  which  were  arranged 
in  parallel  columns  those  texts  which  seemed  to 
contradict  each  other,  each  sentence  being  set  op- 

95 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

posite  its  negative.  The  whole  work  was  based 
upon  the  error  that  a  contradiction  is  equivalent 
to  a  lie.  The  truth,  however,  is  quite  the  contrary. 
Contradictions  are  the  favorite  method  of  wise 
teachers;  they  are  numerous  in  Socrates  and  in 
Bacon. 

Emerson  said  that  "  consistency  is  the  hobgoblin 
of  little  minds,  adored  by  little  statesmen,  and 
philosophers,  and  divines."  And  I  have  known 
but  two  classes  of  people  who  were  absolutely  con- 
sistent —  idiots  and  dead  men. 

The  fact  is  that  when  you  find  a  contradiction 
in  a  wise  man  or  in  a  wise  book,  you  will  usually 
find  midway  between  the  two  clashing  statements 
one  of  the  choicest  morsels  of  truth,  and  one  which 
could  not  have  been  expressed  half  so  well  in  any 
other  way.  For  often  when  a  truth  cannot  be 
directly  come  at  by  a  positive  declaration,  it  can  be, 
as  it  were,  pointed  at  fr  f-  teracting  asser- 

tions. 

In  the  quotation  above,  ti»e  :•  ostle  indicates 
that  when  one  grows  up  he  should  cease  to  be  like 
a  child;  while  the  Master  declares  that  except  we 
turn  and  become  like  a  child  we  are  lost.  And  the 
confusion  of  this  is  but  seeming,  for  it  may  be 
loosed  and  made  into  common  sense  by  two  words 


CHILDLIKENESS  AND  CHILDISHNESS 

that  are  in  our  mouths  every  day  —  to-wit :  the 
words  childlike  and  childish. 

To  be  childlike,  says  Jesus,  is  to  be  great.  I 
have  seen  some  great  men  in  my  time,  and  have 
tried  to  learn  something  of  their  secret;  and  I  have 
never  known  one  who  was  not  simple,  approach- 
able, and  with  a  child  heart.  Great  speech  is 
always  plain,  lucid,  and  direct.  Great  art  is  least 
ornate.  Great  emotions  are  downright.  Where- 
as pettiness  of  all  kinds  is  sophisticated,  smart, 
adorned,  perfumed,  and  jeweled,  or  wants  to  be. 

Childishness  is  another  matter.  About  nine- 
tenths  of  what  we  call  sin  is  mere  childishness, 
undeveloped  morality,  arrested  ethical  growth,  a 
persistent  child  longing  for  gingerbread  and  gew- 
gaws, an  inability  to  appreciate  the  future,  and  a 
readiness  to  sacrifice  the  future  always  for  the 
present. 

Note  some  of  the  childish  things  which  we  are 
to  put  away.  First  of  all  is  crying,  the  most  char- 
acteristic of  all  child  faults.  Analyzed  carefully, 
crying  is  found  to  consist  in  this:  the  gaining  of 
what  we  desire  by  the  use  of  our  disagreeableness. 
It  is  the  weapon  of  weakness.  In  adults  we  call 
it  complaining,  or  pouting,  or  sulking.  How 
many  a  woman  gets  her  way  by  "  the  tyranny  of 

97 


LAME  AND  LOFELJ 

tears  " !  And  how  many  a  man  rules  his  house  by 
sheer  surliness !  Such  are  but  grown  up  "  bawl 
babies."  It  is  almost  worse  than  wickedness;  it  is 
meanness,  and  utterly  despicable.  Pardonable  in 
a  child  of  six,  it  is  unpardonable  in  a  big, 
bewhiskered  hulk  of  forty-six. 

Another  trait  of  childishness  is  the  desire  to 
"  show  off."  Vanity,  and  love  of  notice,  and  the 
hunger  for  admiration  is  cunning  enough  in  little 
Mable  in  short  dresses  and  baby  curls,  but  when 
Mable  becomes  Mrs.  Q.  K.  Philander  Jones,  age 
thirty-five,  and  is  president  of  the  Ladies'  Aid,  and 
the  mother  of  four  children,  and  the  wife  of  the 
leading  grocer,  it  becomes  her  mightily  to  "  put 
away  childish  things,"  and  especially  the  desire  to 
preen  and  prance,  and  occupy  the  spotlight.  Mod- 
esty and  a  modicum  of  humility  ought  to  come  with 
maturity. 

A  child,  too,  is  naturally  egoistic  in  his  instincts. 
Every  child  seems  to  be  a  born  predestinarian.  I 
have  had  children  at  my  own  table,  and  I  know 
that  each  seemed  to  believe,  as  his  inborn  creed, 
that  he  alone  was  predestined  from  the  foundation 
of  the  world  to  have  the  largest  piece  of  pie  and 
the  choicest  portion  of  chicken.  When  we  grow 
up  this  egocentric  trait  also  is  to  be  put  away.  A 


CHILDLIKENESS  AND  CHILDISHNESS 

man  ought  to  learn,  with  years,  that  "  there  are 
others." 

But  that  element  of  the  child  view  which,  if 
retained,  works  most  havoc  in  us  is,  as  I  have 
hinted,  the  lack  of  power  to  visualize  and  realize 
the  future.  When  a  baby  wants  a  thing  he  wants 
it  now.  The  one  thing  he  cannot  do  with  grace  is 
to  wait.  The  present,  the  actual,  hems  him  in 
and  dominates  him.  With  years  ought  to  come 
that  strongest  increment  of  spiritual  power,  the 
ability  to  see  the  unseen;  that  is,  to  see  how  our 
acts  will  affect  others,  how  the  future.  The 
greater  a  man  is,  and  the  manlier,  the  more  he 
weighs  these  invisible  motives  and  is  governed  by 
them. 

For  what  is  all  defiling  greed,  and  theft,  and 
treachery,  and  sensuality,  and  spite,  and  fraud,  but 
a  reaching  forth  of  sightless  and  infantine  desire, 
ignorant  and  heedless  of  the  unseen  thunder  and 
lightning  of  the  moral  world?  And  what  are 
heroes  but  they  who  in  one  form  or  another,  in 
quiet  domestic  sacrifice,  or  in  business  integrity,  or 
in  patriotism,  or  in  religious  devotion,  have  "  en- 
dured the  cross  and  despised  the  present  shame 
for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  them  "  ? 

Children  are  sweet,  almost  divine,  even,  in  their 
99 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

innocent  little  shortcomings;  but  it  is  because  they 
are  children.  The  wisdom  concealed  in  the  two 
contradicting  texts  given  above  consists  in  the  truth 
that  there  is,  in  grown  persons,  a  vast  difference 
between  childlikeness  and  childishness. 


100 


PRAYER 

Lord,  what  a  change  within  us  one  short  hour 
Spent  in  thy  presence  will  prevail  to  make! 
Why,  therefore,  should  we  do   ourselves  this 

wrong, 

Or  others,  that  we  are  not  always  strong? 
—  RICHARD  CHENEVIX  TRENCH. 

THE  gist  of  the  prayer  is  not  asking,  but  com- 
munion.    So  the  test  of  prayer  is  not  the 
getting  of  what  we  ask,  but  the  sense  of  the  pres- 
ence of  Him  of  whom  we  have  asked  it. 

Therefore,  all  "  remarkable  answers  to  prayer/* 
all  instances  where  the  thing  sought  came  to  sur- 
prise the  seeker,  and  all  faith  founded  upon  such 
arguments,  contain  an  element  of  peril  to  the 
thoughtful  and  well-balanced  mind. 

For  the  intelligent  believer  in  God  must  always 
conceive  of  the  universe  as  under  the  control  of 
one  all-wise  will,  who  knows  vastly  better  what 
ought  to  be  done  than  we ;  and  the  last  thing  such 

101 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

a  believer  would  wish  is  that  this  all-wise  will 
should  be  set  aside,  or  influenced  in  the  least  by 
his  ignorant  will. 

The  first  of  all  prayers,  therefore,  and  the  one 
prayer  which  contains  the  seed  of  all  other  prayers 
is:  "  Thy  will  be  done." 

This  does  not  all  imply  that  we  are  to  ask  God 
for  no  favors,  such  as  rain  or  good  crops,  health 
or  good  fortune.  In  fact,  nothing  is  too  small 
or  insignificant  to  ask  God  for,  if  it  is  significant 
enough  for  me  to  want. 

Why,  then,  ask  Him  for  anything,  when  He 
already  knows  best,  and  our  only  wish  is  that  He 
do  as  He  pleases? 

Right  here  many  have  become  helplessly  puz- 
zled and  have  given  up  praying.  But  the  solution 
is  a  simple  one. 

It  is  best  understood  by  an  illustration.  God  is 
to  us  as  we  are  to  our  little  children.  We  do 
not  give  them  all  they  request,  but  we  wish  them 
none  the  less  to  keep  confiding  in  us  their  wishes. 
In  other  words  we  should  feel  very  bad  if,  because 
we  after  all  are  going  to  do  as  we  think  best  for 
them,  they  should  be  piqued  and  never  speak  to  us 
again. 

The  thing  we  want  of  our  children  is  precisely 
102 


PRAYER 

communion  with  them.  We  want  their  confidence, 
friendship,  presence  and  prattle. 

So  the  thing  God  wants  with  us,  and  that  we 
need  from  Him,  is  the  mutual  presence,  conscious- 
ness, and  friendship  between  us. 

The  asking  for  things  is  simply  one  phase  of  this 
communion.  The  refusal  of  them,  as  well  as  the 
granting  of  others  of  them,  is  a  part  of  our  educa- 
tion ;  even  as  the  instances  wherein  we  decline  our 
children's  requests  is  a  part  of  their  training  and 
reveals  to  them  in  time  our  nature. 

Prayer,  therefore,  is  simply  an  attempt  to  feel 
God.  It  is  the  opening  of  the  heart  to  let  in  the 
infinite.  It  is  the  union  of  a  man's  highest  will 
and  consciousness  with  his  loftiest  conception  of 
goodness,  nobleness,  and  beauty. 

Any  man  who  leaves  off  praying  is  doing  him- 
self a  distinct  harm.  There  is  no  possible  excuse 
for  it.  If  he  has  fallen  out  with  his  church,  or 
with  all  churches;  if  he  is  incapable  of  accepting 
recognized  creeds;  if  he  doubts  the  sincerity  and 
believes  in  the  delusion  of  many  of  those  who 
claim  sanctity;  all  these  are  no  reasons  why  he 
himself,  in  his  own  way  and  in  his  own  heart, 
should  not  seek  to  know  and  feel  the  infinite. 

The  presence  of  immense  and  age-long  institu- 
103 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

tions  who  are  supposed  to  be  the  guardians  of  all 
the  truth  about  God,  renders  it  difficult  to  think 
originally  and  simply  on  the  subject.  But  who- 
ever will  have  the  courage  in  his  own  manner  and 
according  to  his  own  light  to  try  to  cultivate  a 
sense  of  God  and  to  come  into  personal  relations 
with  the  infinite  will  and  heart  that  is  above  and  in 
all  things,  will  find  his  life  lightened,  ennobled, 
and  given  great  strength  and  poise. 

And  the  more  a  man  feels  that  he  is  what  is 
called  a  "  sinner,"  the  more  he  is  conscious  of 
having  done  what  he  should  not,  and  of  coming 
short  of  his  own  notions  of  rectitude  and  purity 
and  an  ideal  life,  the  more  he  needs  to  cultivate 
in  his  secret  moments  the  feeling  that  he  can  talk 
it  over  with  the  invisible  Spirit.  It  is  exactly  the 
man  who  is  conscious  of  his  unworthiness  that  the 
spirit  of  God  most  easily  enters.  It  will  repay 
any  man  to  keep  up  what  Jeremy  Taylor  called 
"  the  practice  of  the  presence  of  God." 

It  may  not  imply  that  he  join  this  church  or  that, 
nor  subscribe  to  this  or  that  creed,  but  it  will  mean 
for  him  a  sweeter,  richer,  solider,  kinder,  and 
happier  life. 


104 


THE  SIN  OF  SENSITIVENESS 

Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit. —  JESUS. 
The  thirst  for  applause,  if  the  last  infirmity  of 
noble  minds,  is  also  the  first  infirmity  of  weak  ones. 

—  RUSKIN. 

IF  we  examine  sensitiveness  under  the  micro- 
scope we  shall  find  it  to  be  no  more  nor  less 
than  a  variety  of  egotism.     The  sensitive  nature 
is  simply  one  that  is  too  much  occupied  with  self. 
That  way  madness  lies,  ever. 

I  suppose  no  more  exquisite  torture  has  been 
devised  by  the  evil  one,  at  least  in  this  world,  than 
the  endowing  of  a  highly  organized,  keenly  per- 
ceptive person  with  a  too  large  self-consciousness. 

In  Galsworthy's  "  Fraternity  "  such  a  character 
is  drawn  with  wonderful  accuracy  by  that  master, 
in  Bianca  Dallison.  Here  are  a  few  of  his 
touches :  "  It  was  Bianca's  fortune  to  be  gifted  to 
excess  with  that  quality  which,  of  all  others,  most 
obscures  the  real  significance  of  human  issues. 

105 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

"  Her  pride  had  kept  her  back  from  her  hus- 
band, till  she  felt  herself  a  failure,  and  her  pride 
had  so  revolted  at  this  that  it  led  the  way  to  utter 
estrangement.  Her  pride  even  prevented  him 
from  really  knowing  what  had  spoiled  their  lives 
—  her  ungovernable  itch  to  be  appreciated.  This 
was  the  tragedy  of  a  woman  who  wanted  to  be 
loved  slowly  killing  in  the  man  the  power  of  loving 
her." 

Of  all  the  unlit  and  tortuous  places  in  this  world 
the  human  heart  is  darkest  and  farthest  past  find- 
ing out;  and  the  heart  of  an  intelligent,  cultured 
egoist  with  delicately  strung  feeling  is  worst  of  all. 
The  only  remedy  is  the  persistent  effort  toward 
disinterestedness. 

We  approach  peace  only  as  we  leave  ourselves 
and  come  to  humanity.  No  self-forgetful  person 
is  ever  sensitive.  No  self-forgetful  person  is 
habitually  unhappy. 

This  sin  of  sensitiveness  —  and  we  ought  to 
face  it  as  a  distinct  sin,  a  thing  never  to  be  boasted, 
always  to  be  ashamed  of  —  takes  many  forms. 
Some  of  them  are  of  that  most  dangerous  kind,  the 
kind  that  resembles  virtues. 

For  instance,  self-examination.  There  is  a  sort 
of  luxury  in  probing  one's  own  heart  and  handling 

106 


THE  SIN  OF  SENSITIVENESS 

our  faults,  like  the  pleasure  of  pressing  upon  a 
sore  tooth. 

Conscience  may  descend  to  be  a  species  of  moral 
indigestion.  Copybook  philosophy  and  teachers 
of  moral  platitudes  commend  this  self-scrutiny. 
But  as  a  rule  it  is  vicious.  As  with  our  bodies  so 
with  our  spirits,  the  healthiest  are  those  that  are 
the  least  tampered  with  and  worried  over.  The 
noblest  soul  is  the  one  that  is  unconscious  either 
of  nobility  or  ignobility.  The  righteousness  that 
knows  itself  and  the  sin  that  knows  itself  are  akin 
—  both  bad. 

Another  and  common  form  of  this  protean  soul 
disease  is  self-depreciation.  Wordsworth  hits  it 
off: 

There  is  a  luxury  in  self-dispraise; 
And  inward  self-disparagement  affords 
To  meditative  spleen  a  grateful  feast. 

I  wonder  if  the  housewife  knows  how  uncom- 
fortable she  makes  the  guest  feel  when  she  pre- 
ludes her  dinner  with  apologies?  And  does  the 
young  lady  know  what  an  egregious,  conceited 
minx  she  seems  to  all  simple  and  normal  souls  when 
she  will  not  begin  to  play  the  piano  or  to  sing  until 
she  has  rehearsed  her  limitations  ? 

107 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

And  there  be  those  women  who  are  forever 
slandering  their  own  appearance,  and  men  forever 
decrying  their  own  ability.  This  is  not  humility. 
The  one  blazing  beauty  of  humility,  genuine,  is 
that  it  forgets  itself,  that  the  one  being  it  will 
neither  blame  nor  praise  is  self. 

And  worst  of  all  phases  of  sensitiveness,  per- 
haps, is  self-pity.  Worst,  because  of  it  is  born  a 
deal  of  plain  wickedness.  The  man  who  is  sorry 
for  himself  is  not  far  from  smashing  law  and  con- 
science for  his  own  dear  sake !  Of  all  slops  into 
which  a  manly  man  or  a  womanly  woman  ought 
not  fall  the  maudlin  kindness  for  one's  own  poor 
soul  is  the  most  disgusting. 

I  am  sure  if  we  stop  to  reflect  that  the  whole 
troop  of  degenerates,  the  murderers  and  thieves, 
and  sneaks  and  unclean,  are  uniformly  sorry  for 
themselves,  we  should  hesitate  about  allowing  our- 
selves to  drift  into  such  company. 

Sensitiveness,  and  all  egoisms,  are  not  forms  of 
self-respect;  they  are  the  opposite  of  self-respect. 
They  are  self-defiling,  self-condemning,  self-de- 
stroying. 

The  only  religious,  sensible  thing  to  do  with 
this  precious  me  is  to  forget  him. 


108 


THEY  ALL  DO  IT 

Strait  is  the  gate  and  narrow  is  the  way  that 
leadeth  to  eternal  life,  and  few  there  be  that  find 
it. —  JESUS. 

/  believe  that,  although  none  other  follows  the 
doctrine  of  Jesus,  and  I  alone  am  left  to  practise 
it,  I  cannot  refuse  to  obey  it,  and  that  it  will  give 
me  in  this  world  the  greatest  possible  sum  of  hap- 
piness.—  TOLSTOI. 

LET  us,  at  least  for  the  moment,  consider  this 
shattering  statement  of  Jesus,  not  as  describ- 
ing the  difficulty  of  getting  into  heaven  when  we 
die,  but  getting  into  any  sort  of  success,  efficiency, 
and  poise  of  soul  while  we  live.  Look  at  it  once, 
not  as  a  day-of-judgment  decree,  but  as  a  simple 
law  of  our  human  nature. 

That  law  is  that  whoever  gauges  and  models 
himself  after  other  people  is  on  the  road  to  de- 
terioration and  eventually  ruin;  that  all  real  moral 
advancement  and  true  success  is  solitary  and  along 
"  the  lone  trail." 

109 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

Men  go  to  the  devil  in  crowds.  One  goes 
because  the  rest  are  going.  The  boy  gets  drunk 
because  he  does  not  like  to  refuse  "  the  fellows." 
The  politician  steals  because  he  hears  they  all  do 
it. 

In  fact,  the  devil's  other  name  is  "  They-all-do- 
it."  A  girl  becomes  bad  usually  trying  to  keep 
step.  Almost  all  vice  is  social;  almost  all  right- 
eousness that  is  of  any  account  is  purely  personal. 

The  real  gist  of  any  kind  of  genuine  salvation, 
Jew  or  Gentile,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  is  that  a 
man  has  formed  a  partnership  of  two,  himself  and 
God,  against  the  universe  and  all  that  dwell  there- 
in. Saving  one's  soul  is,  in  its  last  essence,  a  sort 
of  a  declaration  of  independence,  a  sworn  alle- 
giance to  one's  own  inner,  individual  convictions 
and  ideals  and  renunciation  of  all  outside  authority. 

This  makes  plain  why  the  Bible  tells  us  to  be- 
ware of  the  world.  The  world  means  the  mob  — 
other  people.  The  prince  of  this  world  is  one  of 
the  names  Jesus  gives  Satan.  He  is  "  Mr.  They- 
all-do-it."  ' 

When  the  devil  was  cast  out  of  the  Gadarene 
swine  he  confessed  his  name  was  Legion.  God  is 
one ;  the  devil  is  the  many. 

The  truth  of  this  appears  in  ordinary  business, 
no 


THEY  ALL  DO  IT 

The  kind  of  clerk  that  is  hardest  to  find  is  the  one 
who  simply  does  what  he  ought  to  do.  Says  Kip- 
ling: 

Creation's  cry  goes  up 

From  age  to  cheated  age, 
Give  us  the  men  who  do  the  work 

For  which  they  get  the  wage! 

It  is  a  pity,  but  true  as  gospel,  that  the  average 
servant  is  inefficient,  the  average  mother  incom- 
petent, the  average  business  man  incapable,  the 
average  actor  a  poor  one,  and  the  average  preacher 
a  bore. 

In  fact,  the  average  of  any  class  of  men  is  below 
the  average,  so  to  speak.  The  world's  work  is 
carried  on  by  makeshifts.  If  any  man  will  train 
himself  properly  and  correctly  perform  the  duties 
of  his  calling,  whatever  it  is,  he  will  find  that 
people  call  him  a  remarkable  person,  unusual !  ex- 
traordinary ! 

If  you  want  to  amount  to  anything,  follow  the 
gleam,  satisfy  yourself  and  not  others,  go  in  for 
your  own  self-respect  and  not  the  admiration  of 
the  crowd.  The  curse  of  many  a  youth  is  that 
he  has  been  content  to  do  as  well  as  those  about 
him. 

in 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

You  have  heard  possibly  many  a  sermon  on 
"What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved?"  Here  is  one 
on  "  What  shall  I  do  to  be  ruined?  "  and  it  is  a 
short  one:  Do  nothing!  Follow  the  crowd. 
Aim  for  the  average. 

"  For  wide  is  the  gate  and  broad  is  the  way 
that  leadeth  to  destruction,  and  many  there  be  that 
walk  therein." 


I  12 


THE  PRACTICAL  USES  OF  DEATH 

//  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go  away. —  JESUS. 

The  neighborhood  of  the  tomb  enlarges  the 
mind.  The  proximity  of  death  sharpens  the  per- 
ception of  truth. —  VICTOR  HUGO. 

"TQRAGMATISM,"  says  Papini,  one  of  the 

JL  Italian  exponents  of  this  new-old  philos- 
ophy, "  lies  in  the  midst  of  our  theories,  like  the 
corridor  in  a  hotel." 

Which  means  that,  in  whatever  sectarian  or 
partisan  chamber  you  live,  you  must  come  down 
to  pragmatism  if  you  want  to  go  anywhere. 

In  other  words,  we  do  not  need  so  much  to 
explain  and  to  theorize  over  the  facts  and  mys- 
teries of  life  as  we  need  to  know  what  to  do  with 
them.  The  greatest  question  about  anything  is 
not  "  Why  is  it?  "  but  "  What  will  you  do  with 
it?" 

And  right  here  is  where  death  commends  itself 
to  the  highest  ideals  and  sweetest  instincts  of  man- 
kind. Its  function  is  to  be  the  revealer  of  what 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

is  worth  while  in  life.  Quite  apart  from  the  con- 
ventional religious  teachings  about  the  hereafter, 
the  fact  of  the  irrevocable  separation  involved  in 
death,  the  coming  of  its  dread,  silent  footstep  into 
the  house,  casts  certain  clear,  sharp  lights  upon  all 
human  values. 

There  is  this  in  the  atmosphere  of  death: 
Reality  at  last  stands  revealed.  Whatever  be  the 
future  beyond  the  grave,  when  we  stand  by  the 
cold  silence  of  one  whom  we  knew  in  the  warmth 
of  love,  we  can  have  but  one  supreme  wish  — 
that  our  dealings  with  the  lost  and  gone  had 
been  more  unselfish,  more  forbearing,  more  loyal, 
nobler. 

You  may  have  fumed  and  fretted  with  your 
child  in  the  heyday  of  earthly  events,  but  when 
you  come  to  fold  the  stiff  fingers  for  the  last  time 
over  the  little  breast  you  ask  yourself  how  much 
your  worry  and  fret  and  petulance  were  worth. 

In  this  garden  of  death  bloom  the  rarest  flowers 
of  life.  Here  are  humility  and  gentleness,  for- 
giveness and  forbearance,  sympathy  and  goodness, 
reverence  and  awe. 

Why,  if  no  one  ever  died,  if  the  human  herd 
lived  on  and  life  had  its  rude  way  forever  un- 
checked, we  should  grow  hard  and  merciless  and 

114 


PRACTICAL  USES  OF  DEATH 

cruel,  our  vices  instead  of  being  but  poison  flowers 
would  become  sturdy  upas  trees,  and  all  the  gentler 
elements  of  character  would  take  their  flight  like 
frightened  fairies  from  a  midday  wood. 

Death,  after  all,  is  not  harsh  and  monstrous. 
He  is  the  sweetest,  loveliest  prophet  of  nobility. 

We  touch  the  infinite  mystery  at  two  points, 
birth  and  death.  And  it  is  the  little  babies  and 
the  dying  men  that  continually  link  us  to  those 
higher  qualities  of  soul  which  pertain  to  the  better 
kind  of  life. 

But  the  greatest  lesson  of  all  which  death  has 
for  us  is  the  truth  about  love.  Here  where  the 
coffin  stands  there  can  be  no  doubt  any  more  that 
love  is  "  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world."  Here 
the  last  wretched  excuse  we  made  ourselves 
for  our  impatience  and  fretfulness  disappears 
ashamed. 

Here  there  is  no  longer  any  doubt  that  it  is 
better  to  give  than  to  receive.  Here  our  mis- 
erable pride  and  egotism  shrivels  and  expires  like 
an  accursed  Mr.  Hyde. 

And  here  we  see  things.  Here  the  greed  for 
wealth  and  luxury  and  power  stands  unmasked  in 
all  its  salt,  leprous  reality.  In  the  calcium  light 
of  death  we  know,  we  know  through  and  through 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

our  souls,  that  love  was  best.  We  need  no  minister 
to  read:  "Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of 
men  and  of  angels,  and  though  I  have  all  knowl- 
edge, and  though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed 
the  poor,  and  though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned 
and  have  not  love,  it  profiteth  me  nothing." 

There  is  a  pocket  in  the  shroud.  But  it  only 
holds  a  handful  of  love.  This  then  is  the  practical 
use  of  death.  It  solves  no  speculative  problems, 
it  tells  us  nothing  about  the  mysteries  beyond,  but 
death  does  show  "  clear  as  the  sun,  fair  as  the 
moon,  and  terrible  as  an  army  with  banners  "  that 
honor  and  truth,  virtue  and  humbleness  of  mind, 
loyalty  and  purity  —  and  love  are  the  things  worth 
while. 


116 


OTHERWORLDLINESS 

What  the  writer,  the  teacher,  the  pastor,  the 
philosopher,  has  to  do  is  to  defend  humanity  in 
man. —  AMIEI/S  JOURNAL. 

SAID  Jesus  once :  "  Ye  are  not  of  the  world, 
even  as  I  am  not  of  the  world."  And  men 
have  forgotten  the  second  in  striving  to  realize 
the  first  part  of  his  saying.  That  is  to  say,  in 
reaching  for  otherworldliness  they  have  over- 
looked the  manner  and  pattern  of  it,  the  life  of 
the  Master  himself. 

There  has  always  been  a  deep  conviction  that 
the  man  of  religious  conviction  ought  in  some  way 
to  be  different  from  ordinary  men.  This  is  a 
sound  and  true  feeling,  but  in  what  bizarre  and 
amazing  shapes  it  has  been  worked  out !  To  mark 
the  difference  between  a  God's  man  and  a  world 
man  one  will  wear  a  yellow  robe  and  live  on 
begged  rice,  another  will  shave  his  head,  another 
wears  a  uniform  and  a  poke  bonnet,  another  wears 
a  broad  hat  and  drab  garments,  another  uses  no 

117 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

buttons  but  hooks  and  eyes  in  their  stead,  another 
sings  no  songs  but  David's  Psalms,  another  will 
use  only  Latin  in  worship,  some  shout  and  leap 
and  some  sink  into  ascetic  silence,  and  thus  in  a 
thousand  ways  our  poor  humanity  has  tried  to  be 
"  not  of  this  world  "  so  as  to  secure  the  approval 
of  God. 

And  when  we  brush  aside  all  this  mixed  and 
marbled  history  of  human  headiness  and  return  to 
the  Master's  words,  how  simple  they  are  and  how 
absurd  seem  our  vagaries!  For  he  says  that  it 
is  "  even  as  I  am  not  of  the  world  "  that  we  are 
to  gauge  and  set  our  pace. 

And  how  was  his  unworldliness  ?  Did  it  con- 
sist in  strange  apparel,  or  a  pious  tone  of  voice, 
or  ascetic  withdrawal  from  his  fellows?  Not  in 
any  of  these  outward  things.  For  he  dressed  as 
far  as  we  know  precisely  as  other  carpenters 
dressed;  he  mingled  freely  with  sinners,  in  fact, 
preferred  their  society  to  that  of  the  saints  of  his 
day,  and  in  all  of  the  points  where  we  in  our  folly 
have  tried  to  be  unlike  the  world  he  was  exactly 
like  the  world. 

His  unlikeness  to  the  common  run  of  folks  lay 
wholly  in  his  spirit. 

In  the  midst  of  a  society  where  the  leading 
118 


O  THERWORLDLINESS 

religionists  (the  Pharisees)  were  proud,  he  was 
humble. 

While  about  him  was  a  sea  of  selfishness,  he 
was  unselfish. 

When  the  world,  harsh,  cruel,  and  merciless  in 
its  conventional  slavery,  would  have  cast  stones  at 
the  fallen  woman  he  said :  "  Neither  do  I  con- 
demn thee.  Go  and  sin  no  more." 

All  around  him  the  world  was  wrestling,  biting, 
elbowing,  goring,  snarling  for  so-called  success  — 
that  is,  for  prominence  and  power;  he  shunned 
prominence  and  refused  power. 

The  world  was  mad  to  rule,  to  dominate;  he 
was  "  servant  of  all." 

They  sought  to  get  the  service  of  others  by 
means  of  money;  he  sought  only  to  serve  others, 
and  needed  no  money. 

The  world  believed  goodness  was  a  matter  of 
conformity  to  certain  conventions;  he  showed 
how  goodness  was  in  the  liberation  of  the  in- 
dividual soul  from  all  rule  and  its  unity  with  God. 

The  world  was  then  occupied  (and  still  is  oc- 
cupied) in  getting;  men  get  on,  get  rich,  get 
famous,  get  drunk,  get  educated,  and  get  religion. 
He  was  busy  giving,  he  got  nothing;  he  gave 
sympathy,  gave  health,  gave  bread,  gave  truth, 

119 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

gave  himself  and  his  blood.  Hence,  while  the 
great  getters  have  been  swept  into  forgotten 
graves,  upon  him,  the  greatest  giver,  have  been 
placed  all  crowns. 

The  world  put  its  trust  in  force,  hate,  terror, 
money,  armies,  and  dignities;  he  staked  his  all 
on  love  and  service. 

Hence,  to  this  day,  he  remains  the  most  mar- 
velously  misunderstood  figure  in  history.  The 
thing  that  calls  itself  Christian  civilization  is  nine- 
tenths  pagan.  Even  those  organizations  that  as- 
sume to  be  his  body  are  often  how  alien  from  his 
spirit ! 


120 


THE  SERMON  OF  THE  CLOCK 

Yes;  when  you  put  on  Ms  hat  and  turn  this 
diamond  button  a  little,  from  right  to  left  —  here, 
like  this,  see?  —  it  presses  a  bump  on  your  head, 
which  no  one  knows  about,  and  which  opens  your 
eyes  —  It  is  magic,  you  know  —  and  you  see  the 
Reality  of  Things,  the  Soul  of  Bread,  for  instance, 
or  of  Wine,  or  of  Pepper. —  MAETERLINCK; 
The  Blue  Bird. 

Tick  tock,  tick  tock, 

This  is  the  sermon  of  the  clock. 

ONCE  there  was  a  very  unhappy  man.  The 
cause  of  his  unhappiness  makes  no  matter. 
It  is  never  of  any  use  to  ask  why  one  is  miserable ; 
the  point  is,  how  can  he  escape  his  gloom  and 
become  happy?  In  his  dumb  wretchedness  he  sat 
down  one  day  and  stared  at  the  clock.  If  you  will 
look  at  anything  sympathetically  enough  and  let 
your  soul  listen  you  will  hear  some  of  the  secrets 
of  nature.  The  way  to  learn  nothing  is  to  talk, 

121 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

and  read,  and  gabble,  and  do  so  continually.     Be 
still  and  things  will  speak  to  you. 

Tick  tock,  tick  tock, 

Listen  to  wisdom,  said  the  clock. 

Furthermore,  the  clock  said:  You  are  a  fool. 
This  is  always  the  first  thing  a  human  being  ought 
to  grasp.  Wisdom  abides  in  the  things  that  are; 
folly  and  woe  abide  in  the  things  that  ought  to  be 
and  the  things  that  might  have  been.  Hence  only 
men  are  wicked  and  unhappy.  Clocks,  trees,  rab- 
bits, and  fishes  take  the  world  as  it  is;  men  are 
always  trying  to  change  it  and  wishing  it  had  been 
different.  That  is  why  flowers  smile  and  women 
weep. 

Tick  tock,  tick  tock, 

What  do  you  think  of  that?  said  the  clock. 

Happiness  abides  somewhere  hidden  in  what  is, 
the  clock  went  on  to  say.  The  trouble  with  you 
humans  is  that  you  are  ever  seeking  for  it  in  what 
is  not.  Of  course,  you  cannot  find  it;  for,  in  the 
first  place,  it  is  not  there ;  and,  in  the  second  place, 
if  it  were  there  you  could  not  get  it  because  there 
is  no  such  place. 

God  is,  of  course.  He  is  happy.  It  is  only  the 
122 


THE  SERMON  OF  THE  CLOCK 

kind  of  God  that  is  not,  that  is  angry  and  vengeful 
and  anxious  to  make  people  suffer. 

All  His  universe  is  set  for  joy.  The  sky  is  glad, 
and  the  little  streams  giggle  all  day,  and  birds  sing 
for  love,  and  fishes  wriggle  for  fun,  and  even  a 
piece  of  wood  is  glad  it  is  a  piece  of  wood,  and 
milk  and  bread  and  honey  and  fire  are  all  quite 
comfortable  bodies. 

Tick  tock,  tick  tock, 

This  world  is  a  pretty  good  world,  said  the  clock. 

People  have  either  too  much  brains  or  too  little. 
If  you  consider  the  idiots  you  find  them  usually 
merry.  They  laugh  at  nothing  at  all  and  play 
with  their  fingers,  as  kittens  play  with  their  tails. 
And  then  if  you  consider  the  sage  you  find  him 
also  happy,  because  he  has  come  close  to  the  heart 
of  what  is,  which  is  that  thing  we  call  truth;  and 
so  he  does  not  fret  any  more,  for  he  is  drinking 
at  the  hidden  stream  of  joy  that  flows  through  the 
universe,  through  the  sun  and  sand,  and  through 
little  children  and  the  blessed  dead. 

Tick  tock,  tick  tock, 

Cabbages  are  happier  than  kings,  said  the  clock. 

Yes,  yes,  continued  the  clock,  happiness  is  the 
123 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

peculiar  juice  of  the  isness  of  things,  and  not  of  the 
oughtness.  And  then,  look  at  me  I  What  am  I 
doing?  Why,  ticking,  of  course.  It  is  my  busi- 
ness to  tick.  Now,  I  have  to  make  four  ticks  a 
second,  or  240  ticks  a  minute,  or  14,440  an  hour, 
or  345 > 600  a  day,  and  to  think  of  a  week  makes 
my  head  reel;  and  a  year  amounts  to  many  mil- 
lions, where  numbers  cease  to  have  any  meaning 
and  are  just  trills. 

If  I  were  a  fool  man  I  should  be  everlastingly 
counting  up  how  much  I  had  to  do  in  a  week  or  a 
year,  and  I  should  simply  give  one  tremendous 
whizz  with  my  works  and  quit  in  despair.  Being 
a  sensible  clock,  however,  I  remember  that  while 
I  have  several  million  ticks  to  do  per  year,  I  have 
just  as  many  seconds  to  do  them  in,  and  do  not 
have  to  work  per  year  at  all.  I  make  one  tick  at 
a  time,  never  bother  about  those  I  made  or  am 
to  make,  and  everything  goes  off  nicely. 

Tick  tock,  tick  tock, 

For  every  Tick  there's  a  Now,  said  the  clock. 

And  you  people  are  just  as  happy  and  content 
as  we  clocks,  if  you  only  knew  it. 

Most  everybody  is  happy.  Our  unhappiness 
is  borrowed;  borrowed  from  the  past  in  shape  of 

124 


THE  SERMON  OF  THE  CLOCK 

remorse  or  regret,  and  from  the  future  in  the  shape 
of  apprehension.  The  present  is  always  tolerable. 
You  drag  up  from  the  pit  of  the  past  your  sins  and 
follies  and  mistakes,  and  load  them  on  the  poor 
little  Now,  and  when  you  are  not  doing  that  you 
are  reaching  forward  to  the  future  and  imagin- 
ing things  disagreeable  that  are  going  to  happen 
and  piling  them  upon  the  back  of  poor  little 
Now. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  past  is  not  yours.  It 
is  God's.  It  belongs  to  the  universe.  It  has  been 
dissolved  into  the  eternities,  as  a  drop  of  water  is 
lost  in  the  sea.  It  is  beyond  your  control.  Let 
it  go.  All  you  need  take  from  it  is  a  little  wisdom 
to  help  you  to  use  your  own.  And  the  future  is 
not  yours.  That  is  also  God's. 

"  Every  bud  has  but  once  to  bloom,"  says  a 
philosopher,  "  and  every  flower  but  one  hour  of 
perfect  beauty. 

"  Each  star  passes  but  once  at  night  the  meridian 
above  our  heads,  and  burns  there  but  an  instant. 
So  each  feeling  has  its  floral  moment  in  the  heart, 
each  thought  in  the  mind's  sky  its  zenithal  instant." 
Let  us  watch  the  punctual  universe.  All  things 
are  but  one  huge  clock. 

Your  heart  has  its  beats.  Earth  has  its  seasons. 
125 


LAME  AND  LOfELY 

Generations  of  men  come  and  go  as  the  hours  upon 
my  face.  Everything  has  its  moment.  You  have 
yours.  It  is  —  now! 

For  every  creature  except  man,  heaven  is  now. 


126 


ON  GOING  TO  CHURCH 

Fous  qui  pleurez,  venez  a  ce  Dieu,  car  il  pleure. 
Fous  qui  soufrez,  venez  a  lui,  car  il  guerit. 
Fous  qui  tremblez,  venez  a  luit  car  il  sourit. 
Fous  qui  passez,  venez  a  lui,  car  il  demeure!  — 
You  that  weep,  come  to  this  God,  for  he  weeps. 
You  that  suffer,  come  to  him,  for  he  heals. 
You  that  tremble,  come  to  him,  for  he  smiles. 
You  that  pass,  come  to  him,  for  he  abides. 
—  VICTOR    HUGO;    Lines    Written    Beneath    a 
Crucifix. 

GOING  to  church  is  getting  to  be  more  and 
more  out  of  the  fashion. 

I  am  convinced  that  it  is  a  mistake  and  that  we 
are  missing  much  that  is  fine  and  worth  while. 
Though  I  share  a  good  deal  of  the  acerbity  and 
irritation  against  the  historic  institution,  yet  it  does 
not  blind  me  to  the  immense  human  value  and  real 
serviceableness  and  lovableness  of  it. 

Hence,  though  far  from  following  all  the  im- 
plications and  connotations  implied  in  being  a 

127 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

churchgoer,  I  go  just  the  same.  For  I  do  not 
wish  the  inference  of  other  folks'  minds,  or  their 
gratuitous  assumptions,  to  deprive  me  of  a  sterling 
privilege.  Let  me  here  set  down  some  of  my 
reasons. 

First,  let  us  define  the  word.  By  church  I  do 
not  here  refer  to  any  one  sect.  What  is  in  mind 
is  that  wider  institution,  of  which  each  denomi- 
nation is  a  part,  which  is  made  up  of  human  beings 
associated  together  for  the  worship  of  God.  That 
is  to  say  the  society  for  the  promotion  of  the  re- 
ligious feeling.  This  includes  Jew,  Catholic,  and 
Protestant. 

I  am  not  ignorant  of  the  mistakes  of  this  organi- 
zation, even  of  its  crimes.  I  know  that  religious 
institutions  have  persecuted,  been  cruel  and  narrow, 
and  have  often  opposed  science  and  political  prog- 
ress. Neither  have  I  any  excuse  or  apology  for 
these  things :  they  were  and  are  wrong  and  wicked. 
But  it  is  not  excuse  nor  apology  to  observe  what  is 
the  truth,  that  in  every  instance  these  evils  arose 
plainly  from  the  human  weakness,  ignorance,  and 
perversity  of  the  men,  and  never  can  be  traced  to 
the  influence  of  the  religious  feeling  itself. 

The  gold  of  divine  love  is  necessarily  alloyed 
with  human  imperfection;  and  the  things  com- 

128 


ON  GOING  TO  CHURCH 

plained  of  came  every  time  from  the  alloy  and 
not  from  the  gold. 

Laying  aside  its  frailties,  therefore,  with  the  use 
of  a  little  common  sense  and  sympathy,  we  note 
first  of  all  that  the  church  is  the  oldest  organi- 
zation on  earth.  It  antedates  masonry;  no  family 
tree  has  roots  so  deep;  no  existing  dynasty  is  so 
venerable.  It  is  a  comfort  to  get  hold  of  some- 
thing that  has  stood  through  the  centuries.  In  my 
little  meeting  house  I  claim  membership  and  unity 
with  that  church  whose  altar  fires  Moses  built  in 
the  wilderness,  whose  services  were  held  in  the 
catacombs  of  Rome  in  the  reign  of  Nero,  whose 
lofty  cathedrals  grace  Milan  and  Cologne,  and 
whose  weekly  gatherings  still  take  place  in  every 
city  and  hamlet  of  the  world,  whether  in  Jewish 
synagogue,  Catholic  church,  or  Protestant  chapel. 

It  all  means  God,  one  way  or  another ;  it  always 
has  meant  God.  I  am  drawn  to  this  antiquity, 
this  persistence,  this  triumph  over  time.  There's 
a  deep  thrill  in  the  heart  of  man  in  response  to 
Bishop  Cox's  hymn : 

Oh,  where  are  kings  and  empires  now 

Of  old  that  went  and  came? 
But,  Lord,  thy  church  is  praying  yet, 

A  thousand  years  the  same. 
129 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

Speaking  of  the  sins  of  the  church,  too,  it  might 
not  be  out  of  place  to  remark  that  it  has  always 
been  the  religious  feeling  itself  that  has  pointed 
out  these  sins  and  demanded  and  secured  reform. 
The  church  carries  in  herself  her  own  cure. 

Another,  and  most  human  reason,  for  church- 
going,  is  that  churchgoers  as  a  rule  are  the  best 
kind  of  people.  I  speak  of  averages. 

Of  course  there  are  bad  people  in  and  good 
people  out.  But  I  speak  of  averages  when  I  say 
that  the  clean-minded,  honest,  straight,  kindly, 
generous,  and  loyal  folk  gravitate  churchward. 
The  mass,  at  least,  of  the  unclean,  wicked,  criminal, 
false,  treacherous,  and  cruel  folk  drift  from  the 
church  away. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  I  go  to  church  because 
there  I  find  "  my  kind  of  folks  " ;  the  kind  I  want 
to  know,  to  have  for  my  friends  and  to  be  my  com- 
panions and  furnish  atmosphere  for  my  children. 
This  is  not  a  low  motive  nor  sordid,  but  high  and 
pure. 

Of  creed  I  say  nothing,  because  this  writing  is 
not  about  joining  the  church,  but  about  going  to 
church.  To  go,  and  there  to  worship,  does  not 
necessarily  imply  that  one  intellectually  assents  to 
the  theory  of  the  universe  set  forth  by  the  preacher. 

130 


CW  GOING  TO  CHURCH 

I  go  to  church  to  develop  my  religious  feeling, 
not  to  acquire  facts.  Most  important  of  all  rea- 
sons for  churchgoing,  however,  is  that  it  is  the 
most  practical  way  of  keeping  alive  and  efficient 
one's  idea  and  feeling  of  God. 

I  do  not  like  to  have  any  dark  corners  walled 
off  in  my  soul  where  I  am  afraid  to  look.  I  refuse 
to  allow  any  dogmatist  or  organization  to  make 
me  afraid  of  God.  I  want  to  be  familiar  with  the 
thought  of  Deity  and  not  ever  to  turn  from  it  with 
a  shudder  or  a  shrug,  as  men  turn  from  a  fear  or 
from  a  hopeless  puzzle.  Now,  we  may  talk  as  we 
please  about  finding  God  in  trees  and  books,  in 
poetry  and  in  our  meditations,  but  human  nature 
is  human  nature,  and  unless  we  give  regular  ex- 
pression to  an  emotion  or  conviction  it  will  die  of 
inanition. 

The  race  is  some  thousands  of  years  old  and  is 
some  wiser  than  you  or  I,  and  the  experience  of 
the  race  is  that  stated  times  of  worship  alone  keep 
alive  the  disposition  to  worship.  Moses  knew 
what  he  was  doing  when  he  inserted  among  the 
commandments  the  order  to  devote  every  seventh 
day  to  the  religious  feeling.  On  the  whole,  there- 
fore, I  am  sure  any  right-minded  person  will  be 
helped  by  regular  attendance  at  church. 


THE  EYE  OF  THE  SOUL 

//  thine  eye  be  single  thy  whole  body  shall  be 
full  of  light. —  JESUS. 

What  a  man  aspires  to  is  the  creative  cause  in 
his  life,  what  he  forever  is  to  be. —  EDWARD 
HOWARD  GRIGGS. 

THE  expression,  "  the  single  eye,"  is  some- 
times used  with  a  ludicrous  misunderstanding 
of  the  word  as  found  in  our  King  James  version 
of  the  New  Testament,  where  it  is  employed  in  its 
obsolete  sense  of  "  whole  "  or  "  healthy." 

Well-meaning  people  have  expressed  their  wish 
to  have  "  an  eye  single  to  God's  glory,"  or  to  their 
duty,  in  which  the  idea  is  that  of  looking  at  one 
thing  and  not  at  two.  The  phrase  in  our  Bible, 
however,  simply  refers  to  the  advantages  of  having 
a  good  eye  over  having  a  bad  or  diseased  eye. 

The  eye  may  be  taken  as  the  most  practical  and 
serviceable  of  all  our  organs.  It  puts  us  most  in 
communication  with  the  outside  world.  By  it 

132 


THE  EYE  OF  THE  SOUL 

through  one  lens  we  range  the  ultimate  stars ;  and, 
through  another,  we  perceive  the  infinitesimal 
forms  and  motions  of  the  cell  world.  What  the 
eye  is  to  the  body  the  instincts  are  to  the  soul. 

As  all  the  things  we  learn  by  reason  are  small 
in  their  sum  compared  to  the  myriad  things  we 
learn  through  the  glance;  so  the  wisdom,  virtue, 
commandments,  creeds,  and  counsel  we  gather  by 
instruction  in  the  spirit,  are  small  compared  to  that 
higher,  quicker,  more  perfect,  and  more  infallible 
wisdom  we  obtain  by  the  direct  sensing  of  our 
spiritual  eye  of  feeling  and  appreciation. 

If  you  want  a  book  in  a  room  upstairs  and  if 
you  tell  me  to  go  and  find  it  with  my  eyes  shut, 
what  numberless  and  minute  directions  you  must 
give !  I  must  take  so  many  steps  to  the  right  and 
as  many  to  the  left,  and  guide  myself  by  the  hands 
passed  along  this  and  that  object,  and  the  like! 
Whereas,  if  you  -tell  me  to  go  with  my  eyes  open 
and  bring  you  the  blue  book  lying  on  your  dresser 
by  the  pin  tray,  I  can  find  it  a  hundred  times  more 
easily  and  infallibly. 

It  is  precisely  the  same  in  making  one's  moral 
way  through  life.  A  few  sound  instincts  and  clear 
ideals  are  better  than  reams  of  rules.  No  system 
of  ethics,  saturated  with  wisdom  of  antiquity,  and 

133 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

approved  by  all  the  philosophers  of  earth,  is  of 
much  practical  use  to  a  morally  blind  man. 

The  business  of  living  a  pure,  true,  and  right 
life  is,  therefore,  after  all,  a  simple  one,  and  not 
complex.  Follow  your  deepest  longings,  heed 
your  inner  repulsions.  Keep  sound  and  sane  and 
follow  your  nose. 

There  is  more  purity  in  the  instinctive  shrinking 
of  a  simple  maid  than  in  all  the  infinite  maneuvers 
of  propriety.  There  is  more  worship  in  the  child's 
wonder  at  the  thunder  and  admiration  before  the 
flaming  sunset  than  in  all  the  formulas  of  heathen 
ceremonies  or  Christian  ascriptions.  There  is 
more  true  repentance  in  the  misery  of  an  honest 
man  at  telling  a  lie  or  doing  any  mean  action  than 
in  the  longest  litanies. 

It  is  not  only  human  to  err,  it  is  just  as  human 
to  feel  sorry  that  we  have  erred.  The  nobler, 
finer  instincts  and  ideals  of  life  are  as  innate  as 
original  sin.  Every  man  knows  them. 

It  is  when  we  cease  obeying  them  instantly  and 
begin  arguing  with  them,  that  we  fall  into  the 
sloughs  of  moral  confusion. 

And  what  Jesus  came  to  do  for  us  was  not 
to  guide  us  from  without,  but  from  within ;  not  to 
give  us  objective,  external  laws  to  guide  us,  but  to 

134 


THE  EYE  OF  THE  SOUL 

awaken  in  us  a  lambent,  guiding  principle.  He 
came  "  to  open  the  eyes  of  the  blind."  His  dy- 
namic is  not  implicit  obedience,  but  "  perfect  love.1' 

This  explains  all  that  mystical-sounding  lan- 
guage of  the  New  Testament  that  speaks  of 
"  Christ  formed  within,"  "  I  in  you  and  you  in 
me,"  "  if  any  man  will  open  the  door  I  will  come 
in  and  sup  with  him,"  and  so  forth.  All  of  which 
means  that  Jesus'  aim  is  to  be  an  inspiration  of  the 
individual  moral  forces,  an  enkindling  of  personal 
perceptive  powers,  the  awakening  of  the  soul  to 
its  normal  moral  functioning. 

No  man,  no  teacher,  not  even  Christ  himself, 
can  guide  a  man,  so  as  to  develop  his  manhood 
as  well  as  keep  him  from  harm,  except  such  teacher 
or  Christ  enter  into  a  man,  by  his  personal  influ- 
ence, and  strengthen  and  clear  "  the  eye  of  the 
soul." 


135 


LOVING  GOD 

Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord,  thy  God. —  JESUS. 
Nulla  sine  Deo  metis  bona  est. —  No  mind  is 
good  without  God. —  SENECA. 

PERHAPS  of  all  words  in  human  speech  none 
is  more  elastic  than  love.  It  means  as  many 
different  things  as  there  are  minds.  It  is  the  one 
word  which  when  a  man  speaks  means  no  more 
nor  less  than  his  personality.  It  is  the  gist,  sub- 
stance, and  quintessence  of  what  he  is;  more,  of 
what  he  longs  to  be ;  for 

The  thing  we  long  for,  that  we  are 
For  one  transcendent  moment. 

When  you  say,  therefore,  that  you  love  a  man, 
a  woman,  a  child,  or  God,  we  cannot  have  much 
idea  of  what  you  mean  until  we  know  you.  Pious 
folk  express  their  most  exalted  ideal,  the  feeling 
of  their  union  with  God,  and  even  describe  the 
nature  of  deity  itself  by  this  word;  while  vicious 
and  perverted  creatures  use  precisely  the  same 

136 


LOFING  GOD 

word  to  express  their  lowest  form  of  selfishness. 

Love  is  thus  self-revealing.  Our  truest  formula 
of  belief  consists  not  in  what  our  minds  assent  to 
and  our  reason  acknowledges,  but  rather  in  what 
our  desires  are  drawn  to.  A  soul  sometimes  de- 
ceives itself  in  what  it  says,  for  our  words  are 
themselves  but  thought  forms  borrowed  from 
others;  and  in  what  it  does,  for  few  of  one's  acts 
carry  with  them  one's  utter  approval ;  but  no  soul 
is  ever  deceived  in  what  it  likes. 

Let  us  analyze,  as  far  as  we  can,  this  thing  called 
love,  using  the  term  in  its  highest  sense,  and  mean- 
ing the  emotion  that  beautifies  the  family,  pre- 
serves friendship,  and  appropriates  God. 

First  of  all  it  is  a  distinct  emotion.  It  comes, 
as  we  say,  from  the  heart,  and  not  from  the  intel- 
lect or  the  will.  As  near  as  we  can  define  it,  it  is 
that  pleasurable  feeling  aroused  in  us  by  the  pres- 
ence of  the  beloved  object  in  our  thoughts. 

It  is  well  not  to  drift  away  from  this  common- 
sense  basis.  No  intellectual  process,  no  speech  nor 
act,  can  be  called  love,  unless  it  be  heated  from  our 
subconscious  self  by  this  strange  fire.  We  love  a 
man  or  a  book  or  a  flower,  only  as  the  thought  of 
the  object  in  question  gives  us  pleasure,  and  stirs 
this  emotion. 

137 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

Those  who  talk  of  loving  God,  therefore,  when 
there  is  no  inward  joy,  no  stir  of  the  feeling  in 
some  ardent  measure,  are  clearly  mistaken.  They 
may  obey  God,  or  approve  of  Him,  or  fear  Him, 
but  they  do  not  love  Him  except  He  makes  in  them 
some  spot  of  gladness. 

Is  it  not  absurd  then,  it  may  be  inquired,  to  com- 
mand us  to  love  God?  Can  love  be  forced  by  the 
will?  If  it  cannot,  and  it  certainly  cannot,  as  it 
lies  beneath  the  will  and  moves  before  the  will, 
why  should  Jesus  put  as  the  supreme  "  duty  "  of 
man  the  love  of  God? 

The  answer  to  this  plain  and  substantial  objec- 
tion is  this :  that  the  command  to  love  anything 
essentially  good  and  beautiful  is  no  more  nor  less 
than  a  command  to  learn  to  know  it. 

We  are  justified  in  commanding  any  human  be- 
ing to  love,  for  instance,  Shakespeare's  or  Ra- 
phael's works,  because  by  common  consent  such 
art  ought  to  and  does  appeal  to  a  normal,  healthy 
taste. 

So  we  ought  to  love  the  beauties  of  nature,  and 
deeds  of  heroism,  self-sacrifice,  and  the  like,  and 
little  children.  The  obligation  here  consists  in 
our  being  human;  whoever  does  not  like  such 
things  steps  aside  from  the  human  race,  he  is 

138 


LOFING  GOD 

perverted,  and  is  a  subject  for  the  alienist  and  not 
for  the  moralist. 

God,  no  matter  what  our  religion  may  be,  so 
long  as  it  is  civilized,  stands  for  the  perfection  of 
human  character.  In  Him  are  all  those  excel- 
lencies every  right-minded  person  wants  to  possess. 
Naturally,  therefore,  simply  to  conceive  of  such  a 
being  must  awaken  in  us  love  to  Him. 

If  the  thought  of  God  is  distasteful  to  .us,  we 
either  have  a  false  and  distorted  notion  of  what 
God  is,  or  our  tastes  are  perverted  and  our  backs 
turned  upon  what  we  know  to  be  really  worth 
while. 

The  command  to  love  God  is  a  command  to 
know  God,  to  think  of  Him,  to  come  into  the  in- 
fluence of  His  personality.  Once  we  see  God  we 
can  no  more  help  glowing  in  love  to  Him  than  we 
can  help  the  glow  in  our  hearts  when  we  see  a 
perfect  rose,  a  gorgeous  sunset,  a  kind  deed,  or  an 
innocent  child. 

The  curse  of  sensualism,  of  selfishness,  of  hate, 
of  greed,  and  of  all  flesh-centered  or  ego-centered 
passions  is  that  they  stop  up  the  eye  of  the  soul. 
"  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see 
God." 

Lowness,  pessimism,  and  all  bitter  and  base 
139 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

thinking  not  only  prevent  us  from  seeing  God,  but 
also  from  seeing  anything  else  that  is  worth  seeing. 
Bound  in  such  meshes  we  cannot  see  a  woman  as 
her  spirit  should  be  looked  on,  nor  a  man  for  what 
he  really  is,  nor  any  of  the  moral  loveliness  of  the 
universe. 

I  do  not  ask  that  your  idea  of  God  be  the  same 
as  mine,  for  perhaps  both  of  us  are  far  from  the 
truth,  but  it  is  right  to  demand  of  any  man  that  he 
have  some  notion  or  mental  image  of  the  highest, 
truest,  noblest  things  in  life;  whatever  your  God 
may  be  He  ought  to  be  no  less  than  that;  and  you 
are  missing  the  meaning  of  life  if  you  don't  love 
Him. 


140 


THE  USES  OF  CONFESSION 

Sincerite,  comme  le  feu,  purifie  tout  ce  qu'elle 
embrasse. —  Sincerity,  like  fire,  purifies  everything 
it  embraces. —  MAETERLINCK. 

One  can  have  my  confession  without  having  my 
heart;  when  one  has  my  heart,  he  needs  no  con- 
fession of  mine;  all  is  open  to  him. 

—  LA  BRUYERE. 

WHEN  the  whole  world  has  tried  a  truth  and 
found  it  good  it  compresses  it  into  a  prov- 
erb.    One  of  these  compressed  tablets  of  ever- 
lasting truth  is:     Confession  is  good  for  the  soul. 
To  confess  a  sin  or  a  mistake,  a  weakness  or 
a  fault,  in  some  way  separates  it  from  our  souls 
and,   as  Maeterlinck  says,  purifies  it  as  by  fire, 
sterilizes  its  dangerous  germs. 

So  to  open  a  heart  is  to  cure  it.  Only  our 
concealed,  disavowed,  or  unconscious  sins  eat  into 
the  soul  and  attack  the  life  principle. 

This  is  true  in  our  relations  with  each  other. 
141 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

The  little  child  that  goes  frankly  to  his  mother 
and  admits  his  disobedience  is  taken  quickly  into 
the  arms  of  love.  Man  and  wife  who  live  in  a 
continual  white  clarity  of  mutual  confession  have 
an  unbreakable  peace,  a  love  bastioned  and  secure 
against  all  attack. 

In  society  it  is  not  the  known  but  the  unknown 
vice  that  is  dangerous.  Every  exposed  fraud, 
every  aired  scandal,  every  known  scoundrel  is  a 
red  flag  of  warning  to  the  young  and  innocent.  It 
is  the  prosperous,  devious,  and  secret  wrongdoing 
that  spreads  its  cancerous  roots  wide  and  sinks 
them  deep  into  the  body  politic. 

Newspapers  are  a  sort  of  public  confessional. 
What  is  known  is  half  cured.  No  one  hates  the 
organ  of  publicity  as  much  as  the  corrupter  of 
public  virtue,  the  agent  of  private  fraud,  who 
needs  darkness  for  his  success. 

Confession  is  impossible  between  man  and  man 
unless  there  be  some  sort  of  moral  stature  in  the 
one  confessed  to  greater  than  in  the  one  who 
confesses. 

To  a  soul  nobler  than  myself  I  can  speak  freely 
of  my  cowardices,  my  falseness,  my  lapses.  As 
I  talk  to  him  even  my  envy  and  littleness,  my 
egotism,  vanity,  disloyalty,  and  selfishness,  I  know 

142 


THE  USES  OF  CONFESSION 

not  how,  seem  to  lose  their  septic  and  dangerous 
quality  and  to  become  objects  of  curious  interest. 

What  a  relief,  what  sweet  joy,  to  find  a  friend 
from  whom  you  have  been  estranged,  perhaps  by 
some  fault  of  yours,  and  to  lay  bare  your  weakness 
and  wrong  in  plain,  surgical  strokes.  In  some 
mysterious  way,  out  of  your  very  evil  there  springs 
a  tenderness,  a  strength  of  mutual  affection  which 
was  unknown  before.  What  would  lovers  be  with- 
out lovers7  quarrels  and  the  making  up  ? 

It  is  precisely  this  psychological  quality  that 
characterizes  our  relation  to  the  infinite  —  to 
God,  under  whatsoever  form  we  conceive  Him. 
Whether  it  be  the  prostration  before  the  ancient 
altar  of  sacrifice,  whereon  burns  the  lamb  of  atone- 
ment, or  the  whispered  outpourings  of  a  troubled 
heart  through  the  wicker  of  the  confessional,  or 
the  prayers  and  groans  at  the  Methodist  mourners' 
bench,  or  the  Salvation  Army's  penitent  form,  the 
principle  is  the  same.  The  soul  is  unveiling  itself. 

Just  to  say,  to  admit,  to  avow  what  we  are,  in 
the  face  of  infinite  goodness,  floods  the  life  with 
a  cleansing  stream.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  all 
religions  have  placed  confession,  in  one  form  or 
another,  as  the  central  point  of  their  ritual. 

For  confession  is,  at  its  core,  sincerity.  It  is 
143 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

only  in  sincerity  that  the  soul  can  breathe  deep 
breaths,  that  life  is  free  and  joyous.  To  live  in 
conscious  deception  with  those  we  love  is  to  walk 
with  feet  entangled  with  strands.  We  are  ever 
on  the  watch.  There  is  no  peace,  no  utter  relax- 
ation. Those  men  and  women  whose  private 
moral  code  admits  the  doing  of  things  unconfess- 
able  live  a  fevered  and  restless  existence. 

The  first  thing  is  peace  with  the  infinite.  Even 
if  a  man  belongs  to  no  church  at  all,  if  the  impli- 
cations of  institutional  religion  repel  him,  let  him 
in  certain  quiet  moments  call  up  his  soul  and  lay 
bare  his  deepest  self  to  his  own  ideal  of  God;  let 
him  admit  himself,  avow  and  confess  himself,  and 
he  will  carry  from  his  silent  interview  a  lighter 
heart  than  he  has  known. 

Nothing  is  more  foolish  than  dodging  the  idea 
of  God  and  evading  His  presence  in  the  thought. 
I  would  that  all  unchurched  men  might  lay  aside 
their  prejudices,  the  various  ideas  about  God  which 
they  have  been  taught,  and  all  notions  of  their  own 
fitness  or  unfitness,  and  open  their  mind's  door  and 
invite  in  whatever  they  believe  God  to  be,  and 
then  and  there  strip  themselves  of  all  subterfuge, 
of  all  supposed  goodness  and  supposed  badness, 
and  be  once  sincere  with  the  infinite  —  fearlessly, 

144 


THE  USES  OF  CONFESSION 

confidently  sincere,  as  a  child  before  his  father,  as 
a  creature  before  him  that  made  him,  as  a  being 
of  half  lights,  mysteries,  and  shadows  before  the 
sun. 

Whoever  commences  to  live  a  white,  honest  life 
in  the  face  of  his  inner  ideal,  will  begin  to  be  honest 
with  himself.  And  whoever  is  downright  and 
square  with  himself  is  the  only  one  who  can  pos- 
sibly be  loyal  to  his  friends. 

To  thine  own  self  be  true, 

And  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day, 

Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man. 

"  And  hereby,"  says  John  the  beloved,  "  we 
know  that  we  are  of  the  truth  and  shall  assure  our 
hearts  before  him.  For  if  our  hearts  condemn  us 
not,  then  have  we  confidence  toward  God." 


145 


THE  HEART  OF  FATALISM 

That  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by 
the  prophet. —  MATTHEW. 

There  are  many  truths  that  seem  repugnant  and 
contrary  one  to  the  other,  yet  which  subsist  to- 
gether in  admirable  agreement.  The  source  of 
most  religious  errors  is  the  exclusion  of  one  or  the 
other  of  these  truths. —  PASCAL. 

ONE  of  the  most  striking  and  suggestive  say- 
ings of  the  gospel  is  the  nai've  explanation 
Matthew  gives  of  this  and  that  act  of  Jesus,  "  that 
it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  the 
prophet."  It  is  a  luminous  expression,  masterful, 
dramatic. 

One  sees  a  life  moving  according  to  programme 
laid  out  ages  ago;  a  personal  career  which  rises 
from  a  petty  thing  of  chance  and  becomes  a  part 
of  unfolding  destiny,  a  cog  in  the  great  wheel  of 
time;  it  is  fatalism,  but  only  the  sweet  juice  of 
fatalism,  with  the  bitter  rind  thrown  away. 
Every  doctrine  has  some  good  and  some  bad  in 
146 


THE  HEART  OF  FATALISM 

it.  Any  statement  of  truth,  followed  to  an  ex- 
treme exclusion  of  all  other  truths,  becomes  un- 
reason. 

And  there  is  a  vast  deal  of  truth  and  comfort 
in  the  old  creed  of  predestination.  There  is  a 
sense  of  rest  comes  to  the  mind  with  a  realization 
of  the  sovereign  and  all-compelling  will  of  God. 
Always,  of  course,  provided  one  believes,  as  we 
might  say,  in  moderation,  and  does  not  push  his 
faith  to  the  point  of  paralysis. 

For,  while  predestination  is  true,  it  is  not  the 
whole  truth,  for  no  truth  can  be  wholly  crowded 
into  a  statement  —  nothing  but  life  can  perfectly 
inclose  or  express  truth.  It  is  not  the  word  made 
printer's  ink;  it  is  the  word  made  flesh,  which  is 
complete,  well  rounded,  and  safe  to  follow. 

The  source  of  dissipation  in  life  is  the  feeling 
that  one  is  the  creature  and  puppet  of  chance. 
Hence  spring  our  mad  follies,  our  profligate 
wastes,  our  toxic  pleasures  and  septic  negligence. 
If  it's  all  luck,  then  let  us  eat,  drink  and  be  merry, 
for  to-morrow  we  die. 

When  one  speaks  of  destiny,  one  ordinarily 
refers  to  one  event  only  in  life  —  to-wit:  death. 
But  the  end  of  life  is  not  the  only  part  that 
is  scheduled.  It  is  all  according  to  programme. 

147 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

We  are  born  each  on  his  appointed  day,  as  much 
as  Jesus  himself  came  not  until  "  the  fullness  of 
time."  And  every  man's  life  is  a  plan  of  God, 
as  Bushnell  puts  it.  The  varied  structure  of  our 
days  is  made  after  some  plan  drawn  upon  the 
divine  trestle  board.  There  are  blue  prints  and 
specifications  in  heaven  for  each  soul's  growth. 

A  conviction  like  this  must  give  one  poise.  It 
corrects  the  dangerous  extremes  of  despair  and 
overconfidence.  It  takes  away  worry.  It  re- 
moves our  nervous  sense  of  haste.  "  He  that 
believeth  shall  not  make  haste."  It  spreads  a 
summer  calm  throughout  our  thoughts.  It  clears 
the  brain  and  steadies  the  hand.  The  spirit  of 
man  becomes  a  candle  of  the  Lord. 

In  some  form  this  sense  of  programme  is  dis- 
cernible in  every  great  man.  It  is  the  essence  of 
heroism.  Napoleon  called  it  his  star.  Socrates 
spoke  of  his  daimon,  who  whispered  him  advice. 
Caesar  bade  the  frightened  boatmen  have  no  fear, 
for  Caesar  was  on  board,  and  his  fortunes. 

The  remarkable  courage  of  the  Japanese  springs 
from  their  perfect  acceptance  of  fate.  And  what- 
ever force  there  is  in  Islam  is  traceable  to  the  same 
source. 

When  we  exclaim  that  we  cannot  accept  fatalism 
148 


THE  HEART  OF  FATALISM 

we  are  guilty  of  our  western  fault,  which  is  — 
logic.  Carrying  fatalism  to  its  logical  extreme, 
it  is  a  deadening  thing,  and  produces  only  a  stoic 
stolidity.  But  why  carry  it  to  an  extreme? 

The  art  we  western  people  need  to  learn  is  to 
extract  the  feeling,  the  flavor,  the  life  element, 
out  of  a  dogma,  and  not  run  it  down  to  its  pitiless 
logical  end.  For,  as  I  have  said,  there  is  not  a 
solitary  credo,  whether  in  Christianity,  positivism, 
rationalism,  or  in  any  other  religion  or  philosophy 
which  does  not  become  eventually  false  and  salt 
and  bitter,  if  treated  with  pure  reason  alone. 

It  is  only  in  the  temperamental  mixture  and 
blend  of  all  the  great  truths  that  we  gain  wisdom 
and  peace. 

Let  me  feel,  therefore,  that  this  day  is  marked 
out  for  me ;  that  the  past,  good  and  bad,  is  inevit- 
able [even  if  it  was  not],  and  is  now  dissolved  into 
the  ocean  waters  of  the  infinite  purpose;  that  the 
future  is  moving  toward  me  as  fixedly  as  the  past 
is  receding;  that  all  reform  and  right  work,  all 
truth  and  goodness  and  noble  action  are  almighty; 
their  failure  is  only  seeming;  they  have  in  them- 
selves the  very  toughness  and  conquering  inde- 
structibility of  God  himself;  that  every  mean  deed 
and  impure  thought  and  cruel  gratification  and 

149 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

unworthy  self-indulgence  must  meet  its  purifying 
pain  and  whitening  grief  some  time,  somewhere; 
that  the  stars  are  my  friends  and  the  three  fates 
are  motherly  souls ;  that  whatever  power  made  the 
lily  and  clothes  it,  created  the  sparrow  and  marks 
its  fall,  has  also  a  place  and  programme  for  me ;  in 
fine,  let  me,  in  my  little  corner  also,  go  about  my 
Father's  business,  even  as  the  Great  Teacher,  with- 
out fear  or  haste  or  heat,  moving  as  planets  move, 
doing  what  I  may  do  "  that  it  might  be  fulfilled 
which  was  spoken  by  the  prophet." 


150 


A  PREACHMENT  TO  PREACHERS 

My  dear  brother:  You  are  indeed  out  of  your 
place,  for  you  are  reasoning  when  you  ought  to  be 
praying. —  Yours  truly,  JOHN  WESLEY. 

FROM  the  layman  in  the  pews  this  silent  appeal 
rises  to  the  minister  in  the  pulpit:  he  that  hath 
ears  to  hear  let  him  hear ! 

What  we  want  from  you,  sir,  is  but  one  thing  • — 
yourself. 

If  you  preach  Christ,  it  does  us  no  good,  unless 
you  preach  him  in  terms  of  your  own  personal  life. 
The  historic  Christ  and  the  doctrinal  and  tabulated 
Christ  we,  as  well  as  you,  can  get  from  books. 

We  want  no  words  from  you  except  those  that 
are  red  with  your  blood. 

We  do  not  want  the  Word,  but  the  Word  made 
Flesh. 

We  do  not  want  you  to  arouse  our  emotions ;  we 
want  to  see  you  gripped  by  your  own. 

We  do  not  want  argument;  we  do  not  want 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

anything  proved  to  us ;  for  where  you  lay  one  doubt 
you  raise  twenty. 

We  do  not  want  information ;  all  its  sources  are 
open  to  us  as  well  as  to  you.  We  do  riot  want 
science,  history,  or  philosophy;  we  want  of  you 
what  we  want  of  the  one  great  neighbor  —  heart. 

Please  go  through  your  sermon,  before  you 
bring  it  to  us,  and  cut  out  every  platitude,  every 
fine-sounding  phrase,  everything  that  you  will  say 
just  because  you  think  your  church  requires  it,  or 
because  it  is  your  duty  to  say  it.  Give  us  only 
what  you  cannot  help  saying. 

We  ask  you  to  compete  with  novels  and  stories 
in  one  thing  —  human  interest. 

We  ask  you  to  compete  with  poets  in  just  one 
thing  —  vision. 

We  ask  you  to  compete  with  men  of  science  in 
just  one  thing  —  absolute  honesty. 

We  ask  you  to  compete  with  those  who  make  us 
bad  in  just  one  thing  —  in  that  you  like  us. 

We  do  not  need  your  guidance;  we  need  your 
confession  —  that  shall  most  truly  guide  us. 

Do  not  berate  us;  we  know  how  bad  we  are. 
Do  not  dictate  to  us;  for  the  soul  leaps  to  truth 
and  not  authority.  Do  not  urge  us ;  for  souls  that 
can  see  need  no  urging.  Simply  show  us  one  who 

152 


A  PREACHMENT  TO  PREACHERS 

is  in  the  clutch  of  some  reality;  then  we  shall  be 
shamed  and  smitten,  reborn  and  set  on  the  right 
way. 

Do  not  entertain  us.  You  cannot  compete  with 
the  actor.  Strip  your  soul  naked  to  us  and  show 
us  what  no  man  can  simulate  —  life  in  its  pure 
motion. 

Speak  low.  The  things  you  should  have  to 
say  are  secrets.  Every  man's  religion  is  utterly 
modest;  it  is  his  most  shrinking  and  sensitive  vital 
spot. 

Remember  that  we  are  interested  in  the  ultimate 
things  —  love,  life,  God  and  death.  Whenever 
you  mention  one  of  these  things  we  are  anxious  to 
hear  if  you  have  any  light.  Remember  that  the 
spirit  of  this  age  is  not  as  the  spirit  of  former  ages. 
Learn  these  words  of  Griggs:  "  Our  interest 
everywhere  these  days  is  in  the  distinctively  per- 
sonal. If  one  can  tell  openly  and  clearly  the  story 
of  his  own  life,  there  are  many  who  will  find  deep 
interest  in  this.  Literature  is  becoming  more  and 
more  autobiographical.  It  all  means  the  deepen- 
ing consciousness  of  the  absolute  significance  of 
the  human  soul." 

It  is  not  doctrines  any  more  we  want.  It  is  not 
theorems  and  saving  formulas.  We  want  doc- 

153 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

trines  incarnated,  theorems  shining  through  souls, 
formulas  that  are  the  aureoles  of  experience. 

Holy  church  has  become  a  trysting  place  for  our 
souls  with  yours. 

We  do  not  want  to  believe ;  we  want  to  see. 

We  do  not  want  gold  any  more,  but  the  gold 
mine;  not  money,  but  the  bank  and  mint;  not  the 
law,  but  the  lawgiver;  not  the  botany  of  Christ, 
but  the  rose  of  Christ;  not  the  sermon,  but  the 
human  being  behind  it.  We,  too,  "  seek  not 
yours,  but  you !  " 


154 


BEYOND  THE  GRAVE 

//  in  this  life  only  we  have  hope  in  Christ  we 
are  of  all  men  most  miserable. —  SAINT  PAUL. 

THE  idea  of  immortality  is  one  that  is  most 
tenaciously  clung  to  by  our  sentiments  and 
most  conclusively  rejected  by  materialistic  reason- 
ing- 
There  is  danger  that  the  mind  of  the  average 
intelligent  person,  trained  to  the  strict  honesty  and 
self-control  of  modern  scientific  methods,  will  put 
aside  the  sweet  persuasion  as  belonging  to  the 
myths  and  guesses  of  former  ages  of  ignorance. 
Let  us,  therefore,  state  succinctly  the  grounds  upon 
which  an  enlightened,  strictly  truthful  intelligence 
bases  such  a  belief. 

And,  first,  the  whole  matter  must  be  recognized 
as  lying  outside  of  and  beyond  the  realm  of  ac- 
curate knowledge. 

It  has  no  kinship  with  botany,  mathematics, 
chemistry,  or  any  of  the  other  exact  sciences.  It 
lies  rather  in  that  region  which  every  cultured 

155 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

scientist  to-day  acknowledges  to  exist,  where  the 
overtones  of  truth  play,  where  are  the  deep  mys- 
teries of  the  personality,  the  subliminal  instincts, 
and  the  finer  esthetic  perceptions. 

These  things,  of  course,  are  just  as  real, 
though  not  so  well  defined,  as  the  exact  sciences, 
and  have  quite  as  much,  if  not  more,  to  do  with 
life. 

All  materialistic  proofs  of  a  future  life,  there- 
fore, such  as  psychic  research  and  spiritualistic 
performances,  may  be  set  aside  as  hardly  consistent 
with  intellectual  self-respect. 

The  profoundest  argument  perhaps  is  the  one 
emphasized  by  Emerson,  who  says  that  "  when 
God  has  a  point  to  carry  with  the  race  he  plants 
his  arguments  in  the  instincts."  The  fact  that  the 
conviction  that  personality  will  outlast  death  is 
as  old  as  humanity,  has  never  been  absent  from 
human  experience,  and  is  practically  acknowledged 
universally  to-day,  has  great  force.  So  persistent 
a  phenomenon  of  human  consciousness  goes  a  long 
way  toward  proving  that  it  corresponds  to  a  fact. 

Science,  as  John  Fiske  points  out,  has  nothing 
more  to  do  with  the  matter  than  to  weigh  this 
fact.  Science  does  not  prove  immortality  impos- 
sible. He  says :  "  In  the  course  of  evolution 

156 


BEYOND  THE  GRAVE 

there  is  no  more  philosophical  difficulty  in  man's 
acquiring  immortal  life  than  in  his  acquiring  the 
erect  posture  and  articulate  speech." 

The  most  convincing  proof  of  our  continued 
existence,  however,  to  thoughtful  persons  is  the 
fact  that,  without  this,  life  loses  its  moral  signifi- 
cance. The  next  world  is  inextricably  bound  up 
with  our  ethical  sense.  And  that  not  merely  by 
tradition,  but  by  a  profound  reason,  which  has  been 
truly  felt,  though  fantastically  stated,  by  men  since 
the  beginning  of  time. 

The  point  is  that  moral  motives  are  too  long  to 
fit  this  earthly  short  career.  All  the  higher,  more 
humanizing,  subtler,  and  more  altruistic  sentiments 
are  too  cramped  for  room.  They  cannot  fitly 
play  inside  a  space  of  thirty-three  years  or  so. 

Brutal,  bestial,  sensual,  and  all  destructive 
emotions  reap  a  quick  harvest.  Their  reward  is  in 
their  hand.  The  selfish  man  gets  what  he  goes 
after.  He  makes  his  money,  he  sates  his  lust,  he 
fills  the  measure  of  his  pride,  and,  as  with  the 
beasts,  death  comes  mercifully  with  the  decay  of 
his  powers,  so  that  his  term  is  in  a  way  rational. 

But  the  rewards  of  virtue  are  long  and  slow. 
The  increment  of  goodness  seems  a  cosmic  process 
that  needs  not  days  but  centuries.  Honesty  is 

157 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

not  the  best  policy  always,  within  a  period  of  a 
year  nor  of  a  lifetime;  we  feel  it  to  be  the  best 
policy  always  only  when  it  can  get  a  chance  to 
outlive  all  opposition. 

Even  so  loyalty,  purity,  nobility,  and  all  the 
diviner  traits  of  men  only  have  chance  to  stand 
erect  when  they  can  pierce  through  death.  The 
world  would  miss  its  proudest  instances  of  manly 
strength  and  womanly  beauty  if  there  should  be 
taken  away  all  cases  where  men  and  women  went 
smiling  to  death  for  a  principle. 

Hence,  to  remove  from  men  the  feeling  that 
another  life  supplements  this  would  cut  the  nerve 
of  moral  emotion ;  it  would  remove  the  halo  from 
our  flesh;  it  would  rub  out  our  tint  of  divinity;  it 
would  eliminate  all  that  far-reaching  heroism  of 
souls  that  leads  them  to  commit  themselves  utterly 
to  noble  aims. 

Efface  heaven,  and  the  result  is  psychologically 
sure  —  there  would  be  left  for  us  but  the  slough  of 
the  senses  more  or  less  refined,  and  instead  of 
"  enduring  the  cross  and  despising  the  shame  for 
the  joys  set  before  us,"  we  should  adopt  the  advice 
of  Propertius: 

"  Dum  licet  inter  nos  igitur  laetamur  amantes ; 
non  satis  est  ullo  tempore  longus  amor. —  Let  us 


BEYOND  THE  GRAVE 

enjoy  pleasure  while  we  can;  pleasure  is  never  long 
enough." 

The  world  would  be  poor  without  its  Nathan 
Hale,  and  Wiclif,  and  Savonarola,  and  Bruno,  and 
Paul,  and  Socrates,  and  Jesus,  all  of  whom  had 
moral  contents  that  spilled  over  death. 

The  best  reason  for  keeping  heaven  is  because 
it  is  needed. 


YOKE  JOY 

And  establish  thou  the  work  of  our  hands  upon 
us;  yea,  the  work  of  our  hands  establish  thou  it! 

—  MOSES. 

Wind  and  Wave  and  Sun,  how  regenerative 
these  elder  brothers  are!  —  WILLIAM  SHARP. 

NATURE  forgets  nothing. 
She  not  only  produces  with  inexhaustible 
fecundity  but  she  keeps  on  producing  the  same 
kind  of  things. 

Like  the  witches  in  "Macbeth,"  she  sings: 
"  I'll  do,  and  I'll  do,  and  I'll  do,"  and  she  does  the 
third  time  what  she  did  first.  We  emphasize  the 
fact  that  no  two  blades  of  grass  are  exactly  alike, 
and  no  two  waves,  and  no  two  faces;  but  the  most 
striking  factor  in  the  case,  after  all,  is  that  all  grass 
blades  are  on  the  same  pattern,  and  all  waves  and 
faces. 

Yesterday  the  sun  rose  in  the  east  and  set  in  the 
west;  to-morrow  and  forever  it  will  repeat  the 
same  performance.  Rain  ascends  from  the  ocean, 

1 60 


YOKE  JOY 

journeys  on  cloud  ships  to  the  mountains,  is  con- 
densed and  rolls  down  in  rivers  to  the  sea  once 
more,  a  huge,  endlessly  turning  water  wheel. 

Beavers  build  the  same  kind  of  dams  to-day 
they  built  in  the  four  rivers  of  Eden,  and  hens  lay 
the  same  sort  of  eggs  that  Eve  boiled  for  Adam's 
breakfast.  Bees  make  honey  in  the  same  shaped 
cells  and  of  the  same  sweetness  and  by  the  same 
process  their  ancestors  used  for  the  honey  Samson 
found  in  the  lion's  carcass  and  turned  into  a  riddle. 

Nature  produces  a  new  thing  only  by  infinitely 
repeating  the  old  with  minutest  variations.  It 
took  her  eons  and  centuries  to  create  a  human 
arm,  for  instance,  having  practiced  for  a  tremen- 
dous space  of  time  on  the  foreleg  of  the  quad- 
ruped, the  wing  of  the  bird,  and  the  flipper  of  the 
sea  creature.  And  how  many  millions  of  experi- 
ments with  sensitive  skin  dots  before  she  could 
bring  forth  an  eye  to  feel  light  or  an  ear  to  ex- 
perience sound  I 

Atoms  and  molecules,  as  well  as  the  people  of 
New  England,  are  characterized  by  doing  just  as 
they  always  have  done.  Otherwise  there  would 
be  no  such  thing  as  science. 

The  reason  why  coal  ignites  at  a  certain  tem- 
perature, why  oxygen  and  hydrogen  leap  together 

161  ' 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

under  certain  conditions  and  separate  under  cer- 
tain other  circumstances,  is  precisely  the  same  rea- 
son why  the  ladies'  aid  society  at  Worcester, 
Mass.,  always  serves  cold  ham  and  hot  coffee  and 
beans  at  the  church  supper,  and  why  waiters  wear 
dress  suits  — "  they  always  have." 

In  the  forest  the  willow  drops  its  arms,  the  oak 
extends  them  straight  out,  and  the  poplar  holds 
them  up,  because  they  have  the  habit.  Every- 
thing is  old,  old,  old;  even  our  hunger  for  some- 
thing new  —  the  Greeks  had  it. 

Now,  if  nature  is  such  a  slave  to  habit,  it  must 
follow  that  habit  is  a  good  thing.  Nature  is  sat- 
urated with  joy;  nature  everlastingly  repeats; 
hence  if  we  would  attain  joy,  let  us  seek  it  in  rep- 
etition. That  is  a  perfectly  good  syllogism. 

And  it  works  out  excellently  well  in  practice. 
Most  of  our  pleasure  comes  from  the  acts  we  per- 
form over  and  over  again;  as  breakfast,  dinner, 
and  supper;  sleep  and  daily  work,  the  Saturday 
holiday  and  the  Sunday  rest.  To  get  religious  en- 
joyment firmly  fixed  in  us  Jehovah  prescribed 
every  seventh  day  for  it. 

In  proportion  as  a  pleasure  is  healthful,  normal 
and  permanent,  it  is  found  in  grooves.  Oppo- 
sitely, as  we  become  unhealthy  and  perverted  we 

162 


YOKE  JOY 

seek  happiness  principally  in  strange  and  unusual 
sources.  Not  that  there  is  no  pleasure  in  what  is 
new,  only  it  is  not  dependable.  To  expect  con- 
tentment from  novelty  is  to  be  glad  occasionally, 
and  miserable  generally;  while  to  train  one's  self 
to  get  the  zest  and  fun  of  life  from  its  ordinary 
course,  is  to  enter  into  partnership  with  great 
Nature's  self. 

The  old  distinction  between  happiness  and  joy  is 
in  point.  Happiness  just  "  happens  " ;  that  is, 
comes  now  and  then,  and  by  chance;  joy,  however, 
is  in  the  nature  of  things;  it  is  the  condition  of 
spirit  arising  from  being  in  harmony  with  the 
universe. 

No  class  of  people  will  you  find  more  wretched 
than  those  whose  pleasure  consists  in  novelty,  such 
as  gamblers,  the  "  smart  set,"  and  all  who  are  con- 
tinually buying  new  gowns,  new  automobiles,  new 
houses  and  new  wives. 

They  have  fun,  but  it  is  in  rare  oases  dotting 
desert  wastes.  All  aristocracies  and  plutocracies 
who  have  no  work  to  make  them  happy,  float  as  a 
green  scum  upon  the  vast,  sweet,  healthy  pool  of 
humanity;  they  are  an  exanthematous  excretion 
upon  the  surface  of  the  huge,  sound  body  of  the 
race,  which  is  made  up  of  children  and  letter 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

carriers,  bricklayers  and  scientists,  typewriter  girls 
and  grocers,  tinkers,  tailors  and  candlestick  mak- 
ers. 

How  carefully  wrong  we  have  all  been  trained ! 
Success  we  imagine  to  consist  in  escaping  from 
those  who  work  for  a  living  to  sit  among  those 
who  work  only  when  they  please. 

Quite  the  contrary,  the  contented  portion  of  the 
earth's  population  consists  of  those  who  work 
when  the  bell  rings,  whether  they  feel  like  it  or 
not.  For  they  have  heard  the  voice  of  Nature, 
who  cries,  saying: 

"  Take  my  yoke  upon  you  and  learn  of  me, 
and  ye  shall  find  rest  for  your  souls." 

Nature's  peace  is  yoke  peace.  It  lies  within 
the  usual.  The  devil's  peace,  whose  end  is  ashes, 
is  alcohol-jewelry-fame-novelty  peace. 


164 


THE  SOUL  LAOCOON 

The  Laocoon  of  Firgil!  .  .  .  I  know  of  one 
more  terrible.  It  is  the  one  smothered  and  de- 
voured by  serpents  issued  from  his  own  heart. — 

—  CATULLE  MENDES. 

The  prosperity  of  fools  shall  destroy  them. — 

—  SOLOMON. 

MODERN  life  is  engaged  in  a  tremendous 
effort  to  "  look  pleasant."  Literature  of 
the  day  is  inundated  with  streams  of  advice,  ur- 
ging us  all  to  cheer  up.  Those  philosophers  are 
the  fashion  who  tell  us  that  nothing  matters  much 
so  long  as  we  chew  our  food  well  and  don't  worry. 
And  the  most  successful  of  present  day  propagan- 
dists are  they  who  reveal  to  us  that  there  is  no  hell, 
no  devil,  no  wrong,  no  dark,  and  no  pain.  Mean- 
while hearts  continue  to  break,  homes  to  be  ship- 
wrecked, mouths  to  be  full  of  the  ashes  of  excess, 
fortunes  to  be  lost,  quarrels  to  develop,  and  chil- 
dren to  have  the  gripes. 

The  great  fact,  eternal  as  the  race,  is  tragedy. 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

Not  for  nothing  the  great  creative  minds,  from 
^schylus  to  Shakespeare,  hold  up  to  us  the  pol- 
ished mirror  of  their  verse  and  show  us  often  the 
divine  human  face  stone  smitten  with  a  Medusa 
look  and  snake  haired  with  horrors. 

And  the  secret  of  triumph  lies  in  knowing  how 
to  adjust  one's  self  to  the  fact  of  sorrow.  All 
sorts  of  cure-alls  have  been  hawked  down  the 
streets  of  time. 

One  cult  says  of  woe,  laugh  at  it ;  another,  inflict 
such  penitential  torments  on  yourself  that  you 
outdo  it;  another,  face  it  stolidly;  another,  deny  it, 
notwithstanding  the  facts;  another,  join  our  insti- 
tution, which  will  insure  you  against  it,  if  not  in 
this  world,  in  the  next;  and  so  on.  But  the  wise  of 
all  ages  have  discerned  the  healing  truth  about  it, 
which  is  that  all  real  trouble  as  well  as  all  real 
peace  is  from  one's  own  heart,  and  in  one's  own 
inner  court  is  the  real  arena  of  triumph  or  of 
defeat. 

There  is  not  a  single  tragedy  in  history,  as 
Maeterlinck  points  out,  in  his  "  Wisdom  and  Des- 
tiny," where  fatality  really  reigns.  External  fa- 
talities there  do  seem  to  be,  such  as  sickness, 
accident,  the  deeds  of  the  wicked,  and  the  death 
of  them  we  love;  but  such  a  thing  as  an  internal 

1 66 


THE  SOUL  LAOCOON 

fatality  does  not  exist.  The  hero  always  tri- 
umphs ;  at  least  in  that  forum  where  alone  triumph 
or  defeat  has  any  meaning  —  that  is,  within  his 
own  heart. 

Success  and  failure  in  life,  then,  are  in  no  sense 
dependent  upon  anything  but  myself,  and  neither 
are  they  in  any  least  degree  the  sport  of  chance; 
they  come  by  laws  as  sure  in  their  operation  as  the 
laws  that  move  the  sun.  In  other  words,  every 
wretched  man  is  a  Laocoon  tangled  and  crushed 
by  the  serpents  issued  from  his  own  self. 

Among  these  serpents  the  most  common  are  the 
bodily  appetites  that  have  been  allowed  to  stran- 
gle the  will.  To  change  the  comparison,  it  is  as 
if  a  man  drives  his  sledge  over  the  snows  of  des- 
tiny, guiding  strong  wolves,  which  pull  him  for- 
ward so  long  as  he  drives  them,  but  turn  and  rend 
him  when  he  loses  control. 

Foremost  comes  alcohol,  which  has  paralyzed 
how  many  a  noble  will,  and  burned  to  the  ground 
how  many  a  spirit's  dwelling  it  might  have 
cheered!  There  is  no  drunkard  that  is  not  a 
spiritual  suicide.  And  the  first  point  in  the  re- 
demption of  an  alcoholic  pervert  is  that  he  real- 
izes that,  as  no  one  made  him  drink  except 
himself,  so  no  one  can  cure  him,  except  himself. 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

Alcoholism  is  never  hopeless;  one  can  always 
quit. 

It  is  the  spiritual  condition  of  an  impotent  will 
that  is  hopeless. 

Worse  than  this,  however,  and  worse  than  any- 
thing, is  the  perversion  of  the  creative  instinct. 
The  feeling  that  attracts  man  to  woman  is  the 
most  sacred  and  strong  of  all  the  desires  of  the 
body.  When  this  passion  ceases  to  be  a  mastered 
force,  at  once  warming  and  sanctifying  life,  and 
becomes  a  python,  torturing  and  crushing  its  vic- 
tim, there  ensues  the  bitterest  death  in  life.  The 
most  appalling  of  all  ruins  is  the  ruin  of  love. 

We  might  also  speak  of  greed,  of  ambition,  of 
idleness,  of  envy,  of  hate,  of  egotism,  of  pride, 
and  the  hundred  and  one  other  snakes  that  are 
nested  in  the  human  heart,  hatched  in  the  warmth 
of  self-satisfied  ignorance  and  increased  at  length 
to  the  size  of  tragedy. 

The  cure  and  banishment  of  all  such  things  is 
found  in  love  and  wisdom;  love  fixed  on  no  less 
object  than  utter  perfection  —  God.  For  to  love 
God  is  to  let  into  one's  life  the  forces  of  the  in- 
finite. Love  means  admiration  and  self-giving. 
To  admire  and  to  give  one's  self  up  to  such  an 
ideal  as  is  presented  to  us  in  Jesus,  is  to  admit  into 

168 


THE  SOUL  LAOCOON 

our  hearts  the  most  antiseptic  of  all  emotions,  to 
receive  into  our  wills  the  most  tonic  of  all  spiritual 
potencies. 

And  wisdom.  That  is,  first  of  all,  teachable- 
ness, the  recognition  of  our  ignorance.  It  means 
the  openness  to  truth,  and  the  closure  against  all 
such  fraudulent  imitations  of  truth  and  alleged 
substitutes  for  truth,  as  superstition,  custom,  and 
authority. 

Reason,  enlighted  by  wisdom,  the  knowledge 
and  practice  of  the  laws  of  the  universe;  and  the 
heart,  lit  up  by  love,  the  invigoration  streaming  in 
from  God  and  from  good  men  and  women;  these 
are  they  that  shall  rescue  the  Laocoon  soul  from 
its  own  serpent  brood. 


169 


THE  CENTER  OF  THINGS 

I  HAVE  discovered  the  center  of  the  universe. 
It  is  very  wonderful  and  comforting.  I  am 
the  center  of  the  universe.  In  a  minute  this  morn- 
ing this  flashed  on  me,  and  the  puzzle  of  the  ages 
was  solved. 

No  more  dispute  as  to  whether  the  earth  goes 
round  the  sun,  or  the  sun  round  the  earth,  or  both 
round  the  constellation  of  Hercules,  for  the  whole 
cosmos  revolves  about  me.  I  am  the  axis. 

When  Proctor  Knott  extolled  Duluth  as  the 
spot  where  the  horizon  comes  down  at  equal  dis- 
tance in  every  direction,  he  spoke  the  sober  truth. 
I  write  these  lines  on  a  ship  a  thousand  miles  at 
sea ;  all  around  is  water  and  sky ;  and  right  in  the 
exact  geographical  center  of  everything  am  I  and 
my  ship.  Come  to  think  of  it,  this  has  always 
been  the  case,  all  my  life. 

My  father  and  mother  existed  for  the  purpose 
of  bringing  me  into  the  world.  The  old  Third 
Ward  schoolhouse  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  was 

170 


THE  CENTER  OF  THINGS 

built  that  I  might  attend  there,  and  (it  has  since 
been  torn  down)  learn  to  spell;  indeed,  the  entire 
educational  system  came  into  being  in  order  that  I 
might  go  to  that  school. 

Emperors  die  in  China,  and  kings  are  upset  in 
Portugal;  earthquakes  shake  Sicily  and  panics 
Wall  Street,  and  all  simply  that  the  news  thereof 
may  be  laid  before  me  at  the  breakfast  table. 

The  big  and  the  little  dippers  whirl  about  the 
polestar,  Antares  winks,  and  Venus  glows,  and 
Halley's  comet  comes  and  goes  —  for  me. 

And  in  all  this  there  is  no  egotism.  For  in  say- 
ing I  am  the  center  of  the  cosmos  I  do  not  at  all 
imply  that  you  also  are  not  the  center  of  the 
cosmos.  In  fact,  you  are;  everybody  is.  There 
are  as  many  centers  as  there  are  conscious  beings. 
The  mistake  we  have  made  all  along  is  in  suppos- 
ing there  can  be  but  one  center.  If  you  look 
through  a  window  pane  covered  with  rain  drops  or 
frost  crystals  at  a  point  of  light,  you  will  notice 
that  any  way  you  move  your  head  the  light  always 
remains  the  center  of  innumerable  concentric  rings 
formed  by  the  glistening  reflections.  It  is  even  so 
in  life,  as  you  move  the  center  moves. 

There  are  as  many  worlds  as  there  are  crea- 
tures. As  Zangwill  says:  "  The  scent  world  of 

171 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

dogs,  the  eye  world  of  birds,  the  uncanny  touch 
world  of  bats,  the  earth  world  of  worms,  the  water 
world  of  fishes,  the  gyroscopic  world  of  dancing 
mice,  the  flesh  world  of  parasites,  the  microscopic 
world  of  microbes,  intersect  one  another  inextrica- 
bly and  with  an  infinite  interlacing,  yet  each  is  a 
symmetric  sphere  of  being,  a  rounded  whole,  and 
to  its  denizens  the  sole  and  self-sufficient  cosmos." 

The  account  of  creation  as  given  in  the  Penta- 
teuch is,  therefore,  psychologically  and  essentially 
correct;  God  did  make  the  sun  to  give  man  light 
by  day,  and  the  moon  and  stars  to  shine  on  him 
by  night,  as  far  as  man  is  concerned. 

If  the  Bible  had  been  written  for  angels  it  might 
have  stated  the  case  differently.  When  the  peni- 
tent at  the  mourner's  bench  is  told  that  he  will 
never  find  peace  until  he  believes  that  the  Son  of 
God  came  to  save  him  personally,  he  is  told  the 
plain  truth;  the  meaning  of  which  is  that  he  is  to 
move  in  from  the  suburbs  into  the  center  of  crea- 
tion. 

For  it  is  only  when  a  soul  feels  the  stars  rise  and 
fall  about  him  orderly,  angels  and  devils  tugging 
at  him,  and  all  creation  recognizing  his  geocentric 
supremacy,  that  he  gets  poise  and  ceases  to  be 
eccentric.  Eccentric  means,  having  the  point 

172 


THE-  CENTER  OF  THINGS 

about  which  a  wheel  revolves  at  one  side  of  the 
center. 

There  are  so  many  discontented,  unhappy  peo- 
ple in  the  world,  simply  because  there  are  so  many 
eccentric,  lopsided,  bumpy,  flat-wheeled,  irregular 
souls.  Move  in!  Move  in!  Occupy  your  due 
place  in  the  spotlight  of  destiny!  Worms  do  it, 
why  not  you  ? 

Philosophers  have  ridiculed  this  homocentric 
theory.  Goethe  turned  from  it  in  disgust.  Pope 
wrote  caustically: 

While  man  exclaims,  "  See  all  things  for  my  use!  " 
"  See  man  for  mine!  "  replies  the  pampered  goose. 

But  the  instinct  of  humanity  is  wiser  than  the 
wisdom  of  the  learned.  Homer  breathed  truth 
when  he  represented  the  gods  fighting  for  and 
against  Troy.  The  Old  Testament  is  right  when 
it  shows  Jehovah  actively  interested  in  the  chosen 
people.  Every  people  is  a  chosen  people,  and 
there  is  no  God  but  our  own  peculiar  Jah  or 
Elohim. 

And  Jesus  was  most  right  and  true  of  all  when 
he  had  us  appropriate,  each  one  of  us,  the  spe- 
cial care  of  the  Father  of  All.  There  is  no  Prov- 
idence that  is  of  any  mortal  use  to  me  but  Special 

173 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

Providence ;  if  it  is  only  general  it  had  as  well  not 
be  at  all.  It  is  precisely  because  He  clothes  the 
lilies  of  the  field  that  He  will  also  clothe  you,  O 
ye  of  little  faith.  Because  He  notes  the  sparrow 
He  will  note  you. 

You  have  an  inalienable  right  to  your  centricity. 
Occupy  it.  You  cannot  believe  in  God  unless  you 
believe  He  is  yours.  The  only  real  God  is  my 
God. 


THE  THREE  SPHINXES  BY  THE  ROAD 

Nobility  is  not  acquired  by  birth,  but  by  life, 
often  by  death. —  PLUTARCH. 

44 11  TEN,"  says  Pascal,  "unable  to  find  any 

JL  Y-L  cure  for  death,  misery  and  ignorance, 
have  the  notion  that,  to  render  themselves  happy, 
they  must  not  think  of  these  things.^ 

The  real  test  of  a  wise  man  is  suggested  by  thsfe 
paragraph.  For  a  wise  man  is  precisely  one  who 
has  definitely  settled  his  attitude  toward,  first, 
death;  second,  failure;  and  third,  the  unknown. 

No  matter  how  much  knowledge  is  in  a  man's 
head,  how  much  skill  in  his  hands,  and  how  much 
purpose  and  force  in  his  heart,  he  is  still  a  fool 
unless  he  has  met  and  arranged  with  the  three 
great  facts. 

Not  that  any  man  can  understand  one  or  all  of 
these  three  mysteries.  It  is  safe  to  say  no  man 
understands  them.  Since  the  beginning  of  human 
time  they  have  sat  like  sphinxes  by  the  roadside  of 
every  man's  life. 

175 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

But  one  can  do  better  than  understand,  one  can 
adjust  one's  self  to  them. 

After  all,  in  anything,  the  truest  wisdom  is  not 
knowledge,  but  adjustment. 

We  do  not  know  what  electricity  is,  but  we  can 
adjust  ourselves  to  it,  we  can  use  it,  make  it  work, 
and  cause  it  to  serve  us  in  the  telegraphic  wire  in- 
stead of  killing  us  in  the  lightning.  So  also  we 
do  not  know  what  gravitation  is,  nor  chemical 
affinity,  nor  life;  but  we  can  employ  these  mys- 
teries to  our  advantage. 

The  last  three  mysteries  of  life,  which  men  in 
general  cannot  use,  and  by  which  they  are  baffled 
and  downcast,  are  those  I  have  mentioned.  To 
adjust  ourselves  to  them  implies  the  highest  de- 
gree of  intelligence  and  of  moral  power. 

First,  death.  Death  is  as  natural  as  life.  It 
is  a  certainty.  How  many  people  have  settled 
with  it?  Sad  to  say,  to  most  persons  death  comes 
as  an  awful  calamity,  a  blow  in  the  dark,  an  event 
that  upsets  all  calculations  and  defeats  all  the  aims 
of  life. 

A  wise  man  is  one  who  is  always  as  ready  to  die 
as  to  live;  his  books  are  in  order,  his  business  ar- 
ranged, and  his  thoughts  are  so  set  that  death  may 
come  at  any  moment.  No  man  who  is  not  so 


THE  THREE  SPHINXES  BY  THE  ROAD 

has  a  right  to  call  himself  happy  or  intelligent. 

Second,  failure  or  sickness.  In  whatever  a  man 
proposes,  he  ought  to  make  definite  plans  what  he 
will  do  in  case  he  fails. 

Any  fool  can  manage  to  get  along  with  good 
health;  only  a  wise  man  knows  how  to  be  ill. 

Any  general  can  succeed  if  he  invariably  is  vic- 
torious; the  great  general  is  the  one  who  knows 
what  to  do  when  defeated. 

Third,  ignorance.  What  one  does  not  know  is 
infinite,  compared  with  what  one  knows.  The 
supreme  test  of  character  is  one's  relation  to  the 
unknown. 

Out  of  the  unknown  come  the  plagues  of  life; 
for  the  unknown  is  the  lair  of  the  greatest  enemy 
of  life  —  fear. 

Out  of  the  unknown  issue  fear  of  God,  of 
spirits,  of  nature,  of  the  dark,  of  fate,  of  disease. 

Properly  adjusted  to  the  unknown  we  have  re- 
ligion, instead  of  superstition;  our  lives  are  made 
moral  and  brave  and  free,  instead  of  base  and 
cowardly  and  enslaved. 

The  clear,  scientific,  religious  mind  sees  clearly 
the  difference  between  the  things  it  can  and  cannot 
know;  the  untrained,  low  mind  blurs  the  line  be- 
tween known  and  unknown.  This  is  the  chief 

177 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

distinction  between  the  intelligent  and  the  unintel- 
ligent thinker. 

Whoever,  therefore,  will  have  peace,  poise  and 
wisdom  let  him  make  definite  arrangement  with 
the  three  sphinxes  —  death,  failure  and  the  un- 
known. 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  ROCK 
For  their  rock  is  not  as  our  Rock. —  MOSES. 

THE  history  of  mankind  is  the  record  of  a 
huge  experiment  in  getting  together. 

Without  organization  we  get  none  of  the  finer 
elements  of  life,  such  as  orchestras  and  steam 
heat,  cities,  street  cars,  dictionaries  and  police. 

Pure  individualism  means  barbarism.  Each 
man  dwells  in  his  own  cave  with  the  woman  he 
has  taken. 

The  struggle  upward  on  the  part  of  the  race 
is  merely  a  struggle  to  crush  out  those  elements 
that  prevent  cooperation. 

Pride,  lust,  money-love,  power-love  and  all 
forms  of  primal  egoism  disintegrate  society,  pre- 
vent unity,  split  all  pacts  of  mutual  help  and  are 
thus  agents  of  savagery. 

They  minister  to  primitive  egoism,  but  they  de- 
stroy the  higher,  finer  and  more  permanent  ego- 
ism; that  is  to  say,  while  they  seem  to  increase 
a  man,  yet  in  reality  they  eat  him  up.  They  make 

179 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

him  small,  they  narrow  his  nature,  provincialize 
his  ideas  and  push  him  back  toward  the  brute. 
They  are  not  forces  of  evolution,  but  of  dissolu- 
tion. 

Now,  therefore,  almost  all  attempts  at  getting 
together,  all  efforts  at  organizing  into  states, 
churches,  armies,  cults,  unions,  and  the  like,  have 
appealed  to  these  primeval  passions,  which  in  their 
nature  can  never  give  solidity  to  bodies  of  men. 

The  cementing  passions  are  curious.  For  they 
seem  at  first  glance  to  be  anti-individualistic;  to 
make  for  loss  to  me  and  gain  to  others.  Really, 
when  we  come  to  try  them  out  they  increase  and 
strengthen  me.  They  are  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
powerfully  egoistic,  only  that  quality  is  concealed 
in  them;  it  takes  time,  faith,  vision  and  spiritual 
regeneration  to  see  it. 

For  instance,  take  love-of-men,  of  men  souls 
themselves,  instead  of  the  love  of  power  over 
them.  That  seems  to  mean  for  me  to  annihilate 
self  for  others.  Also  take  joy-in-work,  and  devo- 
tion-to-ideal,  and  delight-in-service.  All  of  these 
seem  to  strike  at  self.  We  rebel  against  them 
with  the  instinct  of  self-defense. 

It  is  only  when  we  reach  a  certain  point  of 
ripeness  in  experience,  of  maturity  in  wisdom  and 

180 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  ROCK 

of  power  in  spiritual  insight,  that  we  see  through 
the  shell  to  the  kernel. 

It  is  then  we  perceive  the  actual  truth  of  the 
saying  that  "  he  that  saveth  his  life  shall  lose  it, 
and  he  that  loseth  his  life  shall  find  it." 

For  we  learn  by  and  by  that  only  as  we  put 
away  the  cruder  egoisms  of  lust,  money-love, 
pride,  the  desire  to  be  master,  the  hate  of  service 
and  so  on,  do  we  come  to  a  sweeter,  wider,  nobler 
egoism;  we  come  indeed  to  some  sort  of  true  ap- 
preciation of  our  own  souls  and  of  their  worth 
to  us  and  the  world. 

Only  through  altruism,  only  by  the  path  of 
altruism,  do  we  reach  a  sound  individualism. 

In  the  highest  realm  of  character  altruism 
and  egoism  mean  the  same  thing.  They  blend. 
They  make  the  full  harmony,  the  white  light  of 
souls. 

All  those  institutions,  therefore,  that  are  founded 
upon  the  sands  of  crude  egoisms  must  perish. 
The  state  that  means  mere  defense,  the  church 
that  stands  for  rescuing  the  elect  "  as  brands  from 
the  burning,"  the  schools  whose  aim  is  to  make 
scholars  and  gentlemen  apart  from  the  vulgar 
crowd,  the  business  world  which  has  for  a  motive 
to  make  me  rich  and  independent  and  separate 

181 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

from  my  fellows,  are  on  rotting  piers  and  will  go 
down  in  time. 

Jesus  was  right.  Human  society  must  be 
built  on  the  abiding  altruistic  motives;  only  so 
shall  "  the  gates  of  hell  not  prevail  against  it." 
Nietzsche  was  shortsighted  and  superficial. 
Tolstoi  was  right.  Disarmament  is  right. 

Only  as  we  dare  to  trust  the  altruistic  laws,  only 
as  we  fearlessly  build  our  institutions  on  them, 
only  as  we  have  a  practical,  bold  faith  in  the 
cosmic  energy  of  love  and  trust,  and  an  unshakable 
belief  that  men  will  respond  to  it,  in  spite  of  what 
they  say,  only  so  can  we  permanently  get  together 
and  build  our  houses  upon  the  rock. 


182 


THE  DECLARATION  OF 
INDEPENDENCE 

The  only  true  courage  is  against  fate. 

— LADY  SOMERY. 

THE  Declaration  of  Independence  by  the 
nation  is  not  of  much  importance  unless  each 
citizen  of  the  nation  issues  and  abides  by  his  own 
personal  declaration  of  independence. 

Join  me,  therefore,  in  this  my  declaration: 

I  deny  that  there  is  any  such  thing  as  chance 
or  luck.  I  affirm  that  the  universe  is  managed 
by  an  intelligent  person.  I  can  see  only  a  little 
way,  but  as  far  as  I  do  see  all  is  law;  that  is  just 
ground  for  believing  that  all  is  law  everywhere. 
I  say  a  Person  manages  the  universe,  because  my 
experience  furnishes  me  no  grounds  for  conceiv- 
ing of  an  intelligence  apart  from  personality. 

I  deny  that  God  is  ever  under  any  circum- 
stances my  enemy.  I  affirm  He  is  always  my 
friend. 

I  deny  that  there  is  any  caprice  in  the  moral 

183 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

or  spiritual  world.  I  affirm  the  cosmic  accuracy 
of  the  laws  that  govern  souls. 

I  deny  that  there  is  so  much  as  one  grain  of 
truth  in  premonitions. 

I  deny  that  fear  ever  does  any  good.  I  affirm 
that  the  sensation  of  fear  is  always  poison,  to 
be  resisted  with  all  my  might.  Whatever  comes, 
I  shall  meet  it  better  unafraid. 

I  deny  that  heredity  has  done  anything  to  me 
or  to  any  person  which  we  cannot  turn  to  our 
good.  I  affirm  that  the  original  heredity  is  that 
I  am  a  son  of  God,  and  that  this  inherited  good 
spirit,  if  we  can  realize  it,  is  stronger  than  any 
bad  blood. 

I  deny  that  environment  is  stronger  than  I. 
I  affirm  that  I  can  make  any  possible  environment 
serve  my  success. 

I  deny  that  happiness  is  a  worthy  aim  of  life. 
I  affirm  that  I  am  put  here  to  become  great,  not  to 
be  happy. 

I  deny  that  any  soul  that  is  heroic  is  ever  in 
its  depths  unhappy.  I  affirm  that  joy  is  the  in- 
variable accompaniment  of  fearlessness,  truth 
and  loyalty. 

I  deny  that  any  habit,  instinct  or  taste  is 
stronger  than  I.  I*  affirm  that  I  can  change  these, 

184 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

and  that  the  changing  of  them  is  all  there  is  to 
culture  and  progress. 

I  deny  that  money  has  ever  either  aided  or 
impeded  the  power  of  truth  and  of  good  in  the 
world.  I  affirm  that  the  only  spiritual  dynamic 
is  personality. 

I  affirm  that  religion  is  nothing  except  the 
personal  influence  of  God,  and  that  progress  is 
nothing  except  the  personal  influence  of  good 
people. 

I  deny  that  I  am  "  a  worm  of  the  dust."  I 
affirm  that  I  am  as  important  as  the  rest  of  the 
universe. 

I  deny  that  death  ends  all.  I  affirm  that  my 
personality  shall  live  on  after  the  dissolution  of 
my  body.  I  affirm  that  the  belief  that  the  hu- 
man soul  ceases  to  exist  at  death  is  the  most 
profoundly  immoral  of  all  beliefs. 

I  affirm  that  this  world  was  made  for  lovers; 
that  whoso  misses  love  misses  life;  that  loyal  love 
is  tougher  than  all  hates,  envies  and  malice,  and 
will  eventually  overcome  them. 

I  deny  that  "  as  I  have  made  my  bed  I  must 
lie  in  it."  I  affirm  that  "  if  I  have  made  my  bed 
wrong,  please  God,  I  will  make  it  again." 

I  deny  that  opportunity  knocks  at  every  man's 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

door  but  once.  I  affirm  that  every  day  is  an  op- 
portunity. 

I  deny  that  it  is  worth  while  to  seek  to  be  rich, 
to  be  famous,  or  to  occupy  great  place.  These 
things  are  gambling  chances. 

I  affirm  that  the  one  thing  worth  seeking  is  that 
work  which  seems  play.  Only  in  doing  that  work 
is  a  human  being  sound,  sane  and  content. 

I  deny  any  authority  whatever  over  my  mind. 

I  affirm  that  I  am  absolutely  bound  to  do  what 
seems  right  to  me. 

I  affirm  that  my  personal  well-being  is  best  pro- 
moted by  striving  for  the  well-being  of  others. 

I  can  prove  none  of  these  things.  They  are 
axiomatic  to  me.  There  is  nothing  more  self- 
evident  by  which  to  prove  them. 


186 


SALVATION  BY  RESPONSIBILITY 

He  that  observeth  the  wind  shall  not  sow;  and 
he  that  regardeth  the  clouds  shall  not  reap. 

—  THE  PREACHER. 

FIRST,  what  is  salvation? 
It  may  mean  several  things;  it  has  been 
used  to  mean  making  sure  of  the  entrance  of 
one's  soul  into  heaven. 

Of  that  meaning  I  have  nothing  here  to  say. 
I  use  the  word  in  another  sense,  the  modern  sense 
of  making  one's  character  strong,  so  that  one  is 
master  of  one's  passions,  freed  from  fear,  and 
happily  adjusted  to  the  universe.  In  other  words, 
one  is  sure  of  one's  self,  and  a  source  of  strength 
and  joy  to  others. 

This  kind  of  salvation,  however  it  may  be  with 
any  other  kind,  never  is  attained  except  by  one 
thing  —  Responsibility. 

A  saved  arm  is  an  arm  that  is  muscular  and 
skillful,  a  saved  leg  is  one  you  can  run  and  kick 
with,  a  saved  mind  is  one  that  thinks  clearly. 

187 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

Each  of  these  is  saved  by  peril,  burden  and  effort. 

Protecting,  coddling,  and  shielding  them,  only 
makes  them  flabby  and  weak. 

This  is  the  law  of  life.  The  woman  that  is 
most  really  saved  is  the  woman  who  bears  and 
rears  a  large  family  of  children.  They  mean 
burden,  anxiety,  labor,  self-giving,  often  agony, 
always  responsibility.  And  those  are  the  things 
that  save  a  woman;  save  her  from  being  petty, 
dissatisfied,  useless  and  bad. 

The  noblest  women  I  ever  knew  have  been 
those  who  have  launched  young  lives.  The  most 
magnificent  soul  that  can  be  grown  on  this  earth 
is  a  mother. 

We  all  want  to  "  help  "  boys.  Yet  that  which 
makes  a  boy  great  is  that  which  hinders  him. 
Many  a  promising  lad  needs  only  to  be  kicked 
out,  battered,  discouraged,  and  opposed,  to  make 
a  man  of  him. 

Not  that  we  should  abuse  boys.  We  shall  help 
them.  But  this  old  world,  and  nature,  and  des- 
tiny, intend  to  haze  him,  to  attack  him,  and  to 
roll  him  in  the  mud. 

And  if  that  rough  treatment  arouses  him  to 
fight  and  win,  he  will  be  saved.  Our  safeguard- 
ing does  not  save. 

1 88 


SALVATION  BY  RESPONSIBILITY 

Girls,  it  is  commonly  supposed,  are  to  be 
screened,  protected.  A  girl,  however,  that  has 
always  been  carefully  kept  from  all  temptations 
and  responsibility,  may  be  a  very  sweet,  nice  girl, 
but  she  will  not  be  a  great  woman. 

Some  of  the  purest  souls  I  ever  knew  were  Sal- 
vation Army  lassies,  who  grappled  with  vice  and 
uncleanness  daily. 

One  of  the  noblest  souls  I  ever  knew  was  a 
vaudeville  actress,  who  began  life  as  a  waif,  strug- 
gled up  single-handed,  and  kept  herself  unspotted. 

One  way  to  save  a  soul  is  to  pack  it  in  cotton 
and  keep  it  in  a  glass  globe.  Another  way  is  to 
render  it  antiseptic  and  send  it  forth  into  an  un- 
toward world. 

What  modern  souls  want  is  not  to  be  secure. 
They  want  to  be  great. 

Any  theology  can  tell  you  what  to  do  to  be  se- 
cure; if  you  care  for  that. 

But  there  is  only  one  way  to  be  great,  to  have 
strength  that  can  be  depended  upon  in  a  crisis, 
to  have  the  kind  of  happiness  that  cannot  be 
bowled  over  by  calamity,  to  have  the  kind  of 
faith  that  doubts  strengthen  and  do  not  disturb, 
and  to  have  the  kind  of  purity  that  comes  from 
wisdom  and  not  from  ignorance;  and  that  way  is 

189 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

to  accept  responsibilities,  grapple  them,  and  bear 
them  nobly. 

Then  you  are  safe  as  a  fearless  warrior  is  safe. 

The  other  way  you  are  safe  as  a  man  in  a 
cyclone  cellar  is  safe. 


190 


LOVE  THE  TEST  OF  LIFE 

Love  is  the  best  of  moralists. — BACON. 

LOVE  is  the  test  of  life.  It  tries  every  soul. 
And  it  finds  so  much  dross  in  us  that  it  is  a 
wonder  it  stays  with  us  at  all. 

When  love  comes  it  demands  nobleness.  It 
sounds  the  trumpet  for  every  high  thought  and 
feeling  in  us  to  rally. 

It  smites  every  base  thing  in  us.  It  refuses  to 
live  in  peace  with  meanness,  selfishness  or  sor- 
didness  of  any  kind. 

That  is  why  so  few  people  are  capable  of  a 
great  love.  They  are  not  worthy  of  it.  To  be 
sure,  all  of  us  have  some  of  the  tricks  and  imita- 
tions of  love;  for  love  is  so  good  a  thing  that  if 
we  cannot  have  it  we  must  have  a  pewter  dupli- 
cate of  it.  When  men  cannot  see  God  they  make 
idols. 

So  we  all  have  sex  attraction.  We  treasure 
up  flatteries  and  fair  words,  kisses  and  gifts  and 
compliments:  and  these  trinkets,  ear-rings  and 

191 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

shifts  of  love  are  the  only  things  many  of  us  un- 
derstand. 

But  love  itself  is  as  shattering  as  God.  Love 
is  a  revealer.  It  is  a  revelation.  It  is  blinding 
vision. 

For,  have  you  not  seen  how,  when  a  youth  falls 
in  love,  his  first  persuasion  is  of  his  utter  unworthi- 
ness?  He  is  not  fit  to  touch  her  glove.  Every 
little  vileness  of  his  past  rises  to  scorn  him.  He 
is  crushed  under  a  vast  humiliation.  That  she  will 
smile  on  him  is  a  miracle;  and  he  is  ashamed, 
feeling  that  if  she  but  knew  him  through  and 
through  she  would  flee. 

Marriage  is  so  often  a  failure  because  they  two 
try  to  keep  love  without  greatness  of  soul.  The 
only  happy,  contented  marriages  among  petty 
souls  are  those  of  indifference  and  convenience. 
To  love,  and  not  to  be  noble,  means  tragedy. 

Love  wars  with  egotism.  No  egotist  can  love. 
For  love  is  the  very  soul  of  altruism.  It  means 
self-sinking,  self-forgetfubiess,  self-obliteration. 
It  passes  over  and  sees  a  self  worthy  of  honor 
only  in  the  person  of  the  beloved. 

Love  cannot  dwell  with  pride.  Its  pith  and 
marrow  is  humility.  Any  preening  and  perking 
up  of  self  it  abhors.  It  will  not  claim  its  own 

192 


LOVE  THE  TEST  OF  LIFE 

rights.  Its  joy  is  surrender,  and  not  conquest.  It 
is  great  in  meekness,  after  the  manner  of  true 
greatness.  It  always  "  takes  upon  itself  the  form 
of  a  servant,  and  learns  obedience."  It  refuses 
thrones.  It  washes  feet. 

Love  gives,  gives,  gives.  It  never  can  give 
enough.  Its  climax  of  happiness  is  when  it  can 
give  life  itself.  Its  triumph  is  crucifixion. 

Love  transfigures.  It  renders  the  beloved  ob- 
ject beautiful.  Love  does  not  spring  from 
beauty;  a  thing  is  beautiful  because  it  is  loved. 

So  we  see  why  love  means  such  misery.  It  is 
a  divine  fire  among  earthly  stubble.  It  comes  to 
us;  we  leap  to  it;  for  it  is  the  most  glorious  of 
all  things;  and  then  we  discover  its  fatal  require- 
ment. Alas!  we  must  be  good,  and  we  must  be 
great.  We  fail.  We  go  broken  to  our  graves, 
hoping  for  a  life  beyond,  where  we  may  measure 
up  to  love. 

That  is,  most  of  us  do  this.  Some  put  away 
great  love  entirely.  They  choose  littleness,  be- 
cause it  is  comfortable.  They  settle  down  to 
pleasant  lives;  cultured  swine,  intellectual  cattle, 
more  or  less  brainy  beasts. 

Still,  though  many  strive  with  it  and  are 
wrecked,  and  others  give  it  up,  love  goes  on,  al- 

193 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

mighty,  inborn  in  every  new  child,  inherent  in 
humanity.  It  is  our  redemption  and  our  torment. 
It  is  eternal.  For  it  is  God.  God  flowing,  burst- 
ing up,  heaving  in  tidal  waves  in  the  souls  of  men. 

Suppressed  here,  it  rises  yonder.  Silenced  in 
one  place  its  vocal  harmonies  break  out  in  a  hun- 
dred new  places.  Love  almighty  is  God  almighty. 
It  is  that  breath  which  God  breathed  into  the  nos- 
trils of  the  dust  He  had  fashioned,  and  man  be- 
came a  living  soul. 

Heaven  and  Hell  are  but  love's  flame  and 
shadow  reflected  upon  the  infinite. 


194 


THE  TEETH  AND   CLAWS  OF  AL- 
TRUISM 

Behind  the  idea  of  justice  always  lurks  the  idea 
of  force. — DE  TOCQUEVILLE. 

AS  civilization  becomes  more  and  more  com- 
plex, justice  must  become  more  and  more 
fundamental.  Among  simple  people,  in  antique 
and  ignorant  eras,  security  was  possible  by  force. 
The  mediaeval  baron  lived  safe  in  his  castle  at 
home  and  in  his  harness  in  the  field  by  the  mere 
process  of  keeping  the  common  people  cowed. 
His  walls  and  his  soldiers  were  his  sure  support 
and  defense.  He  alone  had  the  power  to  destroy. 
He  could  hurt  his  people  and  hang  or  chop  them ; 
they  could  not  touch  him. 

Times  have  changed.  The  invention  of  high 
explosives  has  rendered  all  walls  obsolete.  Even 
guards,  armies  and  police  are  insufficient  nowa- 
days to  protect  a  king.  Bombs  are  cheap,  and 
a  dollar  buys  a  revolver  good  enough  to  slay 
an  emperor.  The  machinery  of  destruction  is  in 

195 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

the  hands  of  the  proletariat.  The  power  to  hurt 
has  passed  from  duke  and  doge  over  to  the 
cobbler  and  the  plasterer. 

Every  assassination  of  a  royal  person  contains 
this  lesson.  There  is  safety  no  more  in  high 
places,  except  as  there  is  justice  in  low  places. 
»  "  Be  wise  now  therefore,  O  ye  kings,  and  be 
instructed,  ye  judges  of  the  earth.  Kiss  the  peo- 
ple, lest  they  be  angry  and  ye  perish  from  the 
way  when  their  wrath  is  kindled  but  a  little." 

The  rise  of  democracy  has  been  accompanied 
with  the  growth  of  the  terrific  power  of  private 
vengeance.  The  other  edge  of  democracy,  its  cut- 
ting edge,  is  the  power  of  "  one  of  the  least  of 
these,  my  brethren,"  to  kill.  Along  with  the  doc- 
trines of  altruism  and  universal  brotherhood  comes 
the  manufacture  of  fulminates,  dynamite,  nitro- 
glycerin  and  all  the  black  brothers  of  the  out- 
raged. 

And  there  is  no  refuge  from  this  menace  ex- 
cept justice.  And  not  occasional  justice,  such  as 
of  courts  and  arbitration  boards  and  special  com- 
mittees, but  bottom  justice  which  reaches  to  the 
basic  equities,  which  indeed  must  utterly  reor- 
ganize the  social  arrangement. 

Every  man  must  have  a  fair  chance.    No  child 
196 


TEETH  AND  CLAWS  OF  ALTRUISM 

shall  under  any  circumstances  have  an  unearned 
preference  over  another.  Bringing  one  child  into 
the  world  in  the  slums  and  feeding  him  on  refuse, 
alcohol  and  lust,  and  bringing  another  child  into 
the  world  in  luxury  and  feeding  him  on  milk  and 
honey  and  love;  this  injustice  must  cease.  All 
privilege,  caste,  every  species  of  unfairness  must 
stop. 

So  preaches  the  mild  Jesus.  So  runs  the  gentle 
gospel. 

But  behind  the  flowers  and  perfume  of  this 
appeal  of  goodness  is  an  iron  horror,  a  thing  with 
teeth  and  claws  and  fire-heart  that  says  the  same 
thing. 

Let  us  be  fair  and  just  and  love  our  neighbor 
and  we  will  feel  better.  Quite  so.  But  there  is 
a  hell  side  as  well  as  a  heaven  side  to  every  true 
preachment.  Let  us  abide  in  unfairness,  injustice 
and  selfishness,  and  out  of  the  pit  of  wrong  and 
darkness  by  the  side  of  which  we  feast  shall  come 
fire  balls  and  cyanic  vapors. 

Wherever  there  is  injustice  there  is  danger. 
Wherever  there  is  wrong  there  is  concealed  hell 
fire.  Every  oppression  means  an  explosion.  Ev- 
ery graft  and  connivance  of  roguery  means,  some 
time,  somewhere,  agony  and  heartbreak. 

197 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

"  Wherefore  hear  the  word  of  the  Lord,  ye 
sorrowful  men  that  rule  this  people. 

"  Because  ye  have  said,  We  have  made  a  cov* 
enant  with  death  and  with  hell  are  we  at  agree- 
ment; therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord: 

"  '  Behold,  judgment  will  I  lay  to  the  line,  and 
righteousness  to  the  plummet;  and  the  hail  shall 
sweep  away  the  refuge  of  lies,  and  the  waters 
shall  overflow  your  hiding  place.  And  your  cov- 
enant with  death  shall  be  disannulled,  and  your 
agreement  with  death  shall  not  stand.'  " 


198 


IMITATION  IN  RELIGION 

The  customs  of  a  people  are  their  motive 
power. — DUCLOS. 

THERE  is  nothing  more  imitative  than  our 
religious  experience;  nothing  that  seems  to 
ourselves  more  profoundly  original;  nothing  in 
which  we  follow  more  closely  the  footsteps  of 
others. 

By  this  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  our  re- 
ligious feelings  are  not  genuine.  Quite  the  con- 
trary. We  can  be  as  sincere  in  a  suggested 
emotion  as  in  a  spontaneous  emotion. 

I  believe  in  the  religious  feeling.  I  believe  it 
to  be  the  highest  functioning  of  the  human  in- 
telligence. But  I  am  of  those  who  labor  to  free 
it  from  ignorance,  irrationality  and  base  alloy,  and 
to  get  it  properly  set  in  its  true  psychological 
place.  Religion  is  not  the  private  property  of 
the  church;  it  belongs  to  mankind;  it  doubtless 
exists  in  the  house  of  God,  but  it  is  also  -in  the 
outdoors  of  God,  and  there's  a  lot  more  outdoor 

199 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

space  in  the  universe  than  there  ever  will  be  house 
room.  I  sympathize  with  and  love  all  honest  re- 
ligious feeling. 

But  most  of  the  feelings  of  any  kind  which  we 
think  our  very  own  are  imitative.  The  lover  feels 
about  as  he  has  heard  and  read  that  others  feel; 
the  instinct  is  his  own,  its  form  is  mimicked.  We 
get  angry  at  those  things  at  which  a  man  is  sup- 
posed to  get  angry.  A  young  Albanian  private 
in  the  Turkish  army  the  other  day  was  executed 
for  stabbing  his  captain,  who  had  slapped  his  face. 
His  defense  was  that  his  people  always  killed 
those  who  slapped  their  faces.  He  was  willing  to 
die  to  keep  step  with  a  racial  impulse. 

We  eat  and  drink  under  the  dictates  of  tastes 
which  are  copied.  When  we  go  to  Marseilles 
we  eat  bouillabaisse,  at  Strasbourg  we  eat  pate  de 
foie  gras,  at  Budapest  we  eat  goulash,  at  Naples 
we  eat  macaroni,  in  Germany  we  eat  limburger 
cheese  and  sauerkraut,  down  South  we  eat  hot 
biscuit,  and  in  Boston  we  eat  beans;  and  in  each 
instance  good  livers  can  throw  themselves  into  a 
genuine  imitative  craving  and  relish  for  the  spe- 
cific dish  of  the  locality.  The  most  accomplished 
gourmets  are  those  with  the  most  adaptable  pal- 
ates. 

200 


IMITATION  IN  RELIGION 

We  build  our  houses  to  suit  certain  notions  of 
personal  comfort  which  we  have  inherited  from 
our  people  or  absorbed  from  our  environments. 
When  we  travel  we  consult  Baedeker  or  follow 
the  suggestions  of  friends  in  selecting  the  places 
where  we  are  to  let  our  enthusiasm  loose. 

So,  looking  back,  I  can  see  how  all  my  early 
religious  experiences  were  run  into  molds  ready- 
made  for  me  by  my  surroundings.  I  was  not  sat- 
isfied until  I  had  all  the  forms  of  emotion  others 
said  they  had.  When  I  awoke  to  this  fact  I  was 
at  first  inclined  to  doubt  the  genuineness  of  my 
feelings,  but  more  mature  reflection  brought  me 
about  to  see  that,  while  the  manners  and  shapes 
of  my  sentiments  were  copied,  the  core  and  gist 
of  them  was  truly  my  own,  the  moving  of  a  deep, 
entirely  individual  and  personal  instinct  within 
me. 

Does  not  this  explain  some  peculiar  religious 
phenomena?  For  instance,  the  permanence  of 
religious  institutions,  the  fixity  of  creeds,  the  long 
life  of  churches,  generation  after  generation 
growing  up  and  passing  through  the  same  forms 
of  faith? 

Does  it  not  explain,  also,  the  remarkable 
spread,  the  epidemic  nature  of  new  religions,  how 

201 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

they  seem  to  catch  and  go  like  fire,  increasing  in 
arithmetical  progression  ? 

And  does  it  not  explain,  also,  the  slow  progress 
of  trying  to  apply  rational,  scientific  methods  to 
religious  thought?  It  requires  the  constant  effort 
of  reformers,  prophets,  saints  and  heroes  to  keep 
religion  from  hardening  into  empty  form,  or  run- 
ning away  into  a  travestied  sentimentality,  and  to 
keep  it  near  to  the  individual,  genuine  truth. 

Religion  is  eternal,  because  it  is  human.  All 
churches  are  true,  in  a  way.  The  Jew,  the  Cath- 
olic, the  Protestant,  the  Christian  Scientist,  each 
is  trying  out,  in  the  long  experiment  of  years, 
some  particular  phase  of  the  truth.  Each  doubt- 
less will  have  a  part  in  forming  that  sweet  and 
reasonable  religion,  that  rational,  intelligent,  per- 
fect attitude  toward  the  infinite  which  our  chil- 
dren's children  shall  count  not  the  least  among 
the  treasures  we  have  wrought  for  them  with 
our  highest  effort  —  the  religion  of  to-morrow. 


202 


DO  THE  MEEK  MAKE  GOOD? 

Blessed  are  the  meek  for  they  shall  inherit  the 
earth. —  JESUS. 

A  GENTLEMAN  writes  that  a  magazine  has 
offered  a  framed  motto,  "  Blessed  Are  the 
Meek,"  to  any  meek  person  who  has  made  good. 
He  wants  me  to  answer  this. 

One  cannot  answer  a  joke,  much  less  a  covert 
sneer.  But  if  any  cares  to  think  clearly  about 
meekness  I  can  point  the  way. 

The  question  is,  what  does  it  mean  to  make 
good?  If  it  means  to  get  on,  then  meekness  is 
silly.  If  it  means  to  become  great,  then  meekness 
is  the  only  way. 

If  to  make  good  means  to  have  some  feudal 
master  of  dollars  notice  you,  promote  you  or  en- 
dow you  by  his  royal  will  or  pleasure ;  if  it  means 
to  win  in  the  gamble  of  business;  if  it  means  cur- 
rying favor  with  the  vested  interests  until  you 
are  made  leading  citizen  of  the  village  or  judge 
of  the  court;  if  it  means  scheming,  fawning  and 

203 


LAME  AND  LOFELJ 

handshaking  until  you  are  elected  governor  of  the 
state  or  bishop  of  the  church;  if  it  means  spending 
millions  in  printer's  ink  and  upon  billboards  until 
you  make  the  multitude  buy  your  brand  of  hats 
or  soups  or  pianos;  if  it  means  what  is  commonly 
meant  by  success,  to-wit,  prominence,  notoriety 
or  wealth,  then  the  meek  do  not  make  good. 

But  if  by  making  good  is  meant  to  become 
strong,  sane  and  sure  in  soul,  wise  and  clear  in 
mind,  sweet  and  wholesome  in  character,  with 
your  own  life  full  of  peace  and  poise,  and  with 
your  whole  influence  a  help  and  inspiration  to 
those  who  know  you,  then  nobody  ever  does  make 
good  save  the  meek. 

Jesus  said,  "  the  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth." 
To  understand  that  you  have  to  know  what  meek- 
ness is.  It  is  not  timidity,  cowardice,  servility 
and  such  tempers.  It  is  —  Humility. 

And  what  is  humility?  It  is  the  wish  to  be 
great  and  the  dread  of  being  called  great.  It  is 
the  wish  to  help  and  the  dread  of  thanks.  It  is 
the  love  of  service  and  the  distaste  for  rule.  It 
is  trying  to  be  good  and  blushing  when  caught 
at  it.  It  is  loyalty  to  truth  and  reality,  and  hate 
of  sham  and  seeming. 

In  all  the  real  things  of  life  it  is  only  the  meek 
204 


DO  THE  MEEK  MAKE  GOOD? 

who  inherit.  In  love  it  is  the  meek  who  sit  upon 
thrones  and  it  is  the  proud  who  bow  down  to 
them ;  in  art  it  is  the  meek  alone  who  have  eyes  to 
see  the  shy  secrets  of  nature  and  the  grace  to  fitly 
interpret  them;  in  science  it  is  the  meek  alone 
who  have  the  subtle  instinct  for  truth;  in  good- 
ness it  is  only  the  meek  who  have  that  rare  flower 
of  unconscious  purity,  and  in  life's  sterner  affairs, 
before  the  furies  of  sickness,  failure,  calumny  and 
death,  it  is  only  the  meek  who  stand  calm  and 
ready,  while  the  braggarts  tremble,  whine  or  flee. 

Who  of  us,  in  his  serious  hour,  would  not 
rather  be  found  worthy  to  stand  beside  old  Soc- 
rates, poisoned  like  a  rat  in  a  hole,  and  Jesus, 
hung  up  to  die  between  two  thieves,  and  Lincoln, 
shot  down  like  a  dog,  than  to  be  brother  to  the  last 
devious  money  lord  or  political  baron  who  has 
schemed  and  bludgeoned  his  way  to  the  kingship 
of  these  times? 

To  furnish  the  cheapest  kind  of  prize  to  all 
the  meek  who  make  good  would  bankrupt  a  mil- 
lionaire. For  all  over  the  world,  among  simple 
folk,  "  unwept,  unhonored  and  unsung,"  each 
faithful  in  his  small  corner,  are  myriads  of  brave, 
helpful  souls,  who  suppose  themselves  to  be  noth- 
ing, who  would  be  amazed  if  told  there  is  any- 

205 


LAME  AND  LONELY 

thing  noble  about  them,  yet  who  are  facing  life's 
responsibilities  bravely  and  death's  terrors  un- 
afraid and  the  unknown  to-morrow  with  cheer 
and  strong  hearts.  No  prize  of  men  or  maga- 
zines can  reach  them,  for  they  hide ;  but  they  wear 
unseen  the  crown  of  wild  olive,  for  all  that,  and 
unto  them  shall  be  given  the  morning  star. 

They  are  like  God;  for,  have  you  never  no- 
ticed? God  is  so  shy  and  humble  and  hidden  that 
the  humbugs  don't  believe  He  exists !  God  never 
seems  to  make  good,  until  the  centuries  have  their 
say. 


206 


WIDENING 

Rien  ne  ressemble  moms  a  I'homme  qu'un 
homme  —  Nothing  less  resembles  mankind  than 
a  man. —  BALZAC. 

I  KNOW  a  woman  who  is  a  perpetual  child. 
She  retains  all  the  childish  strong  love  of 
them  that  love  her  and  hate  of  them  that  hate  her. 
And  she  makes  no  bones  of  it.  She  never  tries  to 
dye  her  likes  and  dislikes  with  color  of  justifica- 
tion, but  is  frank,  open  and  above  board  slap-me- 
and-I'll-slap-you,  and  kiss-me-and-I'll-kiss-you. 

And  I  don't  know  but  she  gets  along  about  as 
well  as  those  of  us  who  try  to  be  just  and  fair  in 
our  emotions. 

For  I  have  walked  about  in  the  mess  of  men 
and  the  ways  of  women  some  years  and  have  ob- 
served, and  my  conclusion  is  that  when  all's  said 
and  done  most  of  our  instincts  are  downright 
primitive. 

A  soul  wriggles  a  good  deal,  like  a  wobbly 
arrow,  but  as  a  rule  it  speeds  from  the  bow  of 

207 


LAME  AND  LOP  ELY 

the  cradle  to  the  target  of  the  grave  in  just  about 
the  trajectory  which  the  hand  that  shot  it  de- 
signed it  to  take. 

In  plain  prose,  we  are  born  with  a  bunch  of 
tendencies  and  our  days  are  spent  in  working  them 
out. 

We  keep  imitating  and  imitating  other  people 
whom  we  admire,  but  it  is  only  a  business  of  try- 
ing on  successive  suits  till  we  find  one  that  fits 
us.  For  we  never  permanently  come  under  the 
influence  of  any  one  who  is  not  just  spiritually 
adapted  to  our  own  self. 

So  we  say  such  a  poet,  author,  actor,  man  or 
woman,  "  finds  "  us.  Which  simply  means  that 
such  person  helps  us  express  our  self. 

We  like  a  certain  preacher,  for  instance. 
Why?  Because  he  says  what  we  think.  We  read 
a  certain  author  with  pleasure  because  he  helps 
us  give  form  to  convictions  we  already  have.  So 
Lord  Bacon  shrewdly  said  he  wrote  a  book  to  tell 
men  what  they  had  always  known. 

The  soul  is  a  narcissus  that  loves  only  those 
other  souls  which  are  as  pools  on  which  it  can  see 
the  reflections  of  itself. 

As  life  deepens  we  find  in  ourselves  more  and 
more  of  the  multiplicity  of  humanity.  And  so  we 

208 


WIDENING 

love  more  and  more  kinds  of  men  and  different 
traits  of  men. 

It  is  herein  that  the  sage  differs  from  the  petty 
soul.  He  has  come  into  a  broad  sympathy  with 
humanity  because  he  has  become  more  widely  hu- 
man. He  sees  that  in  himself  are  all  crimes  and 
all  sanctities. 

Hence  with  the  saint  on  his  knees,  drunk  with 
ideal  holiness,  the  wise  man  is  not  shocked  nor 
has  any  contempt,  but  he  says  amen  to  any  whitest 
prayer,  and  with  the  drunkard,  the  thief  and  the 
murderer  he  has  no  bitter  words  of  abhorrence, 
because  in  his  own  soul  he  has  felt  these  swift 
shadows  and  poison,  desperate  darkness  of  them, 
and  he  wants  to  put  his  hand  on  the  wretch's  hand 
and  say,  in  pity  and  humbleness  —  My  brother ! 

So  it  is  a  straight  way  from  the  direct  and 
childish  soul  that  slaps  back  and  kisses  back,  up 
to  the  serene  character  of  the  great  soul  that  loves 
all  and  forgives  all. 

It  is  all  a  matter  of  more  humanity,  more  life, 
more  inner  resources,  more  wealth  of  personal 
development. 

A  great  man  is  like  a  wide  sea  and  laves  the 
shore  of  all  continents  and  kinds  of  men.  He 
loves  all  because  he  is  akin  to  all. 

209 


LAME  AND  LOVELY 

Jesus  said  to  the  woman  taken  in  adultery: 
"  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee  " ;  to  the  thief  on 
the  cross :  '  This  day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in 
Paradise  " ;  to  God,  speaking  of  his  murderers : 
"  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what 
they  do." 

The  difference  is  one  of  degree.  The  little 
soul  sees  itself  only  here  and  there  among  men. 
The  great  soul  (which  we  call  divine)  sees  itself 
in  all  mankind. 

The  child  and  the  savage  love  their  benefac- 
tors; intellectual  people  love  their  kind;  saints 
love  the  brethren;  sinners  love  their  sort;  the 
Jah  of  the  Hebrews  loved  the  chosen  people ;  the 
God  of  the  middle  ages  loved  the  elect;  Jesus 
loved  the  world. 


210 


JESUS  OUT  OF  DOORS 

The  same  day  went  Jesus  out  of  the  houset  and, 
sat  by  the  seaside. —  MATTHEW. 

TT  7E  can  never  understand  Jesus  until  we  get 
V  V  him  away  from  the  Temple. 

It  is  when  he  steps  from  the  altar  and  goes  with 
us  to  the  home,  the  workshop  and  the  seaside,  that 
we  perceive  his  supreme  significance  to  life. 

And  he  is  so  much  more  splendid  when  we 
take  him  out  of  formulas  of  salvation,  and  walk 
with  him  along  the  ways  of  days. 

The  modern  man,  growing  less  and  less  sensi- 
tive to  the  appeal  of  ritual  and  authority,  finds, 
like  the  two  upon  the  road  to  Emmaus,  that  his 
heart  burns  within  him,  as  he  talks  with  Jesus  out 
of  doors. 

Jesus  out  of  doors,  free  from  the  stuffy  air  and 
stuffier  ideas  of  the  "  meeting  house  " ;  Jesus,  not 
a  wooden  part  of  a  wooden  scheme,  but  a  luminous, 
warm  Teacher;  Jesus,  unwrapped  from  the  spicy 
grave-clothes  of  heathen  rites,  and  treading  with 

211 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

us  the  meadows  of  modern  thought,  with  eternal 
springtime  in  his  look;  Jesus,  descending  from 
the  incense-swathed  niche  and  the  light  of  candles, 
into  the  open  of  life  and  literature;  Jesus,  with 
his  scepter  of  authority  laid  by,  ruling  now  by  the 
inspiration  of  his  word;  Jesus,  with  the  "many 
crowns  "  of  kingship  removed,  crowns  he  never 
wanted,  but  which  the  ignorant  enthusiasm  of  a 
king-infested  age  forced  upon  him,  thrice  as  un- 
welcome to  the  real  grandeur  of  his  soul  as  the 
Crown  of  Thorns;  Jesus,  coming  among  us  with 
the  genuine  greatness  of  his  character,  and 
stripped  of  the  artificial  greatness  of  thrones, 
dignities,  and  robes,  great  in  vision  and  wisdom 
and  love,  and  relieved  of  soul-killing  superstition; 
this  Jesus  is  one  whose  leadership  rests  not  upon 
his  birth,  nor  prophecies,  nor  miracles,  nor  the 
conclusions  of  logic,  nor  the  authority  of  Church 
and  State,  nor  Tradition;  but,  with  a  fair  field  and 
no  favor,  by  sheer  virtue  of  his  dominant  person- 
ality and  ideas,  easily  outstrips  all  competitors  in 
the  race  for  mastery. 

What  a  joy  to  him  it  must  be  to  know  that  he 
has  ceased  to  be  a  battle-cry  for  the  fierce  passions 
of  war,  is  ceasing  to  be  the  bone  of  contention 
between  sects,  and  is  coming  to  be  the  symbol  of 

212 


JESUS  OUT  OF  DOORS 

individual  nobleness  and  social  brotherliness  every- 
where I 

The  clash  of  theological  discussion  has  died 
away;  people  have  lost  interest  in  the  mighty 
themes  that  once  rent  nations;  religious  bigotry, 
and  its  shadow,  irreligious  bigotry,  have  practi- 
cally disappeared;  vast  libraries  of  religious  dis- 
pute and  speculation  molder  away,  read  no  more ; 
ancient  institutions  are  crumbling,  upheld  only  by 
enormous  endowments;  yet  in  all  this  downfall 
and  decay  we  see  no  diminution  of  the  real  mastery 
of  Jesus  over  the  thought  of  mankind. 

Only  to  him  can  the  altruist  appeal  as  to  one 
having  those  far  dreams  of  perfect  beauty  for  the 
race.  In  him  only,  of  all  masters,  the  working- 
man  finds  those  ideals  of  dynamic  power  and  seed 
persistence  that  insure  the  downfall  of  all  tyran- 
nies. He  alone  stands  in  the  ultimate  ways  of 
all  political  economy.  What  God  may  be  we 
cannot  tell,  but  up  to  this  day  no  figure  but  that  of 
Jesus  stands  between  us  and  our  loftiest,  sweetest 
conception  of  God,  "  like  an  angel  in  the  sun." 
And  of  all  the  world's  great  teachers  he  alone 
remains  with  us  in  the  mist  and  dark  of  death,  and 
whispers:  "  It  is  I.  Be  not  afraid!  " 

In  endowed  pulpits  doubtless  they  are  still  dron- 
213 


LAME  AND  LOFELY 

ing  upon  the  themes  of  Trinitarianism  and  Uni- 
tarianism ;  but  the  modern  mind  cares  not  whether 
he  was  human,  divine,  or  myth.  It  asks,  What  Is 
he?  not  What  was  he? 

Because  the  question  to-day  is,  What  does  he, 
or  any  man,  or  God,  mean  to  my  character  ?  We 
have  lost  interest  in  salvation  beyond  the  grave. 
Now,  as  in  the  New  Testament,  it  is  a  scarcely 
mentioned  topic. 

We  are  interested  in  life  here,  power  and  depth 
of  life,  that  "  eternal  quality "  of  life,  without 
which  any  "  eternal  duration  "  would  be  as  insuf- 
ferable in  Angelico's  Heaven  as  in  Orcagna's  Hell. 

And  for  purposes  of  character-making,  inspi- 
ration, wisdom,  purity,  holiness  and  nobility,  we 
need  the  Ideal  Jesus.  So  long  as  the  Ideal  is 
here  we  care  not  by  what  avenues  it  comes.  It 
came  through  the  New  Testament.  It  might  have 
come  through  Goethe,  Plutarch  or  Victor  Hugo, 
only  it  did  not.  The  point  is  that  to  the  modern 
mind  it  is  the  fact  of  Jesus,  his  teachings,  his 
life-story,  the  mental  picture  of  him  and  his 
fecundating  thoughts,  and  not  the  vehicle  through 
which  this  fact  has  come  to  us,  that  is  important. 


214 


JESUS  OUT  OF  DOORS 

The  little  Christ  that  lay  on  Mary's  breast, 
The  babe  the  mediaeval  mind  caressed, 

Is  not  my  Jesus ;  mine's  a  new-born  hope 
That  builds  each  morn  within  my  life  its  nest. 

The  Christ  that  once  in  ancient  Galilee 
Strewed  golden  parables  beside  the  sea, 
Is  not  my  Lord ;  he  vaster  walks  to-day 
The  avenues  of  souls,  and  talks  with  me. 

That  Christ  between  two  thieves  there  on  the  hill 
Is  not  the  Son  of  God  we  helped  to  kill ; 

In  slum  and  prison,  nailed  twixt  law  and  lust, 
Hangs  the  dim  horror  of  our  common  will. 

There  was  no  Christ,  I  say !     That  thorn-set  brow 
Was  not,  but  w,  eternally  and  now ! 

Up  through  the  hate  of  centuries  he  bears 
The  unwilling  world  to  love,  we  know  not  how. 


215 


BY  THE  AUTHOR  OF  THIS  BOOK 

HUMAN    CONFESSIONS 

BY 

FRANK  CRANE 

"Human  Confessions"  is  one  of  the  rare  books 
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The  author  writes  straight  to  the  vitals  of  com- 
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enjoyable." 

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that  is  really  alive." 

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